The Acorn Woodpecker ( Melanerpes formicivorus ) is a medium-sized woodpecker, 21 cm long with an average weight of 85 g.

Although it does forage for insects by boring into trees with its chisel-like bill, the bird also catches insects in the air during flight, ( typical insect hawking ), a habit that only a few other woodpeckers, such as the Acorn woodpecker, the Red-headed Woodpecker and the Northern flicker, engage in.

Although Acorn were able to shrink substantially the same functionality as the BBC into just one chip, manufacturing problems meant that very few machines were available for the Christmas period — to the extent that some shops reported eight presales for every delivered machine.

( via their ARA / ARA2 / ASR products ) allowed ' Sideways ROM ' capability, that allowed the standard Acorn ROM space to be programmatically mapped out for alternative EPROMs, either physically via ZIF Sockets, or ' virtually ' via ROM-images loaded into ( Battery-backed ) RAM in the same ROM memory space.

The Advanced Plus 3 was very similar to the Acorn Plus 3 but packaged as an ADFS ROM cartridge for the Plus 1 with a disc drive connector at the head.

There were around 1, 400 games released for the Acorn Electron, several thousand extra public domain titles were released on disc through Public Domain libraries.

See also the list of Acorn Electron games for a fairly comprehensive list of games published for the machine and: Category: BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games for a list of games with information on Wikipedia.

The BBC published BBC BASIC, developed for them by Acorn Computers Ltd, incorporating many extra structuring keywords and advanced floating-point operation features.

* The BBC Micro home computer from 1982, built for the BBC by Acorn Computers Ltd

* Gauntlet ( Micro Power video game ), 1984 Defender clone for the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro and Amstrad CPC computers

Acorn created a plug-in for the BBC Master range of computers containing a 80186-10 with 512 KB of RAM, the Master 512 system.

The TRS-80 Color Computer, IBM PCjr, MSX, and BBC Micro from Acorn Computers all contained a built-in relay for controlling an external tape recorder.

Sibelius, originally created for RISC-based Acorn computers, was so well-regarded that, before Windows and Macintosh versions were available, composers would purchase Acorns for the sole purpose of using Sibelius.

* Pipeline ( game ), a 1989 computer game for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron

A 256-colour version of the game was released for the Acorn RISC OS platform on floppy disk, with a CD version including voice acting released later.

* Acorn flour is made from ground acorns and can be used as a substitute for wheat flour.

BBC BASIC is a programming language, developed in 1981 as a native programming language for the MOS Technology 6502 based Acorn BBC Micro home / personal computer, mainly by Sophie Wilson.

BBC BASIC, based on the older Atom BASIC ( for the Acorn Atom ), extended traditional BASIC with named / procedures and functions, loops, and structures inspired by COMAL.

Acorn is sometimes referred to as the " British Apple " and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being a catalyst for start-ups.

Beginning in December 1914, London worked on The Acorn Planter, A California Forest Play, to be performed as one of the annual Grove Plays, but it was never selected — it was described as too difficult to set to music.

Acorns are such an important resource to the California populations that Acorn Woodpeckers may nest in the fall to take advantage of the fall acorn crop, a rare behavior in birds.

In California, Acorn Woodpeckers breed from May – July.

As part of the effort by some chapters to stay afloat by severing ties with the national organization, California ACORN changed its name to Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, New York ACORN renamed itself New York Communities for Change, and an offshoot of the ACORN organization called Acorn Housing changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America yet has retained the same tax and employee identification numbers that it held under its former name.

* The Acorn ( newspaper ), an Agoura Hills, California newspaper

* Camarillo Acorn, a Camarillo, California newspaper

* Moorpark Acorn, a Moorpark, California newspaper

* Simi Valley Acorn, a Simi Valley, California newspaper

* Acorn, California

* Acorn, Oakland, California, a housing complex

Among these are: Red-tailed Hawk, Golden Eagle, Bald Eagle, Turkey Vulture, Raven, Scrub Jay, Steller's Jay, Great Horned Owl, Acorn Woodpecker, California Quail, Western Bluebird, and the non-native Wild Turkey.

Residents are encouraged to preserve mature oak and pine-oak stands of trees and to provide dead limbs and snags for nesting, roosting, and granary sites to help preserve the Acorn Woodpecker's population.

The school emblem is the royal oak tree, the yearbook is named the Oak, and the newspaper is called the Acorn.

The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational / home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd.

The hardware of the BBC Micro was emulated by a single customized ULA chip designed by Acorn in conjunction with Ferranti.

Following Olivetti's 1985 cash injection into Acorn the machine was effectively sidelined.

The Acorn Plus 1 added two ROM slots, an analogue interface ( supporting 2 channels ) and a Centronics parallel port.

Per a News article on Page # 9 of the October 1984 issue of Acorn User, the Acorn ' Plus 2 ' interface was due to provide Econet capability.

The Acorn Plus 3 was a hardware module that connected independently of the Plus 1 and provided a double-density 3½ ” disc drive connected through a WD1770 drive controller and an ADFS ROM.

The Slogger and Elektuur Turbo Boards were born out of a hack initially devised at Acorn.

If Acorn had thought to include this small modification in the original Electron design it is likely the machine would have had a much greater impact as it would have nearly doubled the amount of motion possible in games and saved modes 0 – 3 ( including the only 16 colour mode ) from being nearly useless due to contended memory timings.

Advanced Plus 5 and Acorn 6502 2nd Processor.

Despite Acorn themselves effectively shelving the Electron in 1985, games continued to be developed and released by professional software houses until 1991.

( C ) 1983 Acorn Computers Ltd. Thanks are due to the following contributors to the development of the Electron ( among others too numerous to mention ):- Bob Austin, Astec, Harry Barman, Paul Bond, Allen Boothroyd, Ben Bridgewater, Cambridge, John Cox, Chris Curry, 6502 designers, Jeremy Dion, Tim Dobson, Joe Dunn, Ferranti, Steve Furber, David Gale, Andrew Gordon, Martyn Gilbert, Lawrence Hardwick, Hermann Hauser, John Herbert, Hitachi, Andy Hopper, Paul Jephcot, Brian Jones, Chris Jordan, Computer Laboratory, Tony Mann, Peter Miller, Trevor Morris, Steve Parsons, Robin Pain, Glyn Phillips, Brian Robertson, Peter Robinson, David Seal, Kim Spence-Jones, Graham Tebby, Jon Thackray, Topexpress, Chris Turner, Hugo Tyson, John Umney, Alex van Someren, Geoff Vincent, Adrian Warner, Robin Williamson, Roger Wilson.

Other services are provided at the Accrington Pals Primary Health Care Centre and the Accrington Acorn Primary Health Care Centre.

The latter two behaviours were inherited by the successor to Acorn MOS, RISC OS.

* BBC Domesday Project, a partnership between Acorn Computers Ltd, Philips, Logica and the BBC with some funding from the European Commission's ESPRIT programme, to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book, an 11th century census of England.