Purpose-Built Educational Computers in the 1980s: The Australian Experience - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 103

BBC had noted that with the availability of a growing number of powerful and in-
creasingly less expensive microcomputers on the market, that it would soon be feasi-
ble for many people to purchase their own computer at an affordable price [5], and
decided to start a computer literacy television series. The BBC needed a microcom-
puter capable of performing tasks which could be demonstrated in their TV series
'The Computer Programme'. These included: programming, graphics, sound and
music, Teletext, controlling external hardware and artificial intelligence [4]. After
discussions with several British computer companies, Acorn won the contract to pro-
vide a computer for this program and the Acorn Proton (successor of the Acorn
Atom) became the Acorn BBC model A. The Acorn BBC model B followed in 1982
[5], based on a 6502 processor and with 32k bytes of RAM.
2.3 ICON Computer (Canada)
In 1981 the Ontario Minister of Education announced a need for computer literacy for
all students and set up an Advisory Committee on Computers in Education that
would, amongst other things, would draw up plans for an educational computer that
would become the standard in Ontario schools [6]. A series of working sessions by
various government departments and professional associations during 1981 produced
a set of specifications for an educational computer. These included high resolution
colour graphics and sound synthesis capabilities (which were only just possible at this
time), 64k of RAM and a local area network form of architecture. By 1983 CEMCorp
(later to join with Burroughs) had developed a prototype ICON computer to meet the
Ministry's specifications. The ICON was quickly nicknamed the 'Bionic Beaver' and
the first of these were installed in a few Ontario schools in 1984. The ICON system
was designed around the 80186 microprocessor, based on a file server / workstation
model with no local storage on the workstations [7] which were housed in a single
box that included a keyboard and trackball. The operating system was Unix-like. The
Ontario Ministry of Education sponsored the production of educational software and
subsidised schools in purchasing their ICON computers from 1984.
3 Designing the Australian Educational Computer
In 1983, the Australian Government's Commonwealth Schools Commission set up the
'National Advisory Committee on Computers in Schools' (NACCS) to plan a National
Computer Education Program. The terms of reference of this committee were to provide
advice on professional development, curriculum development, software/courseware,
hardware, evaluation, and support services [8]. In February 1984 the Commonwealth
Minister for Education and Youth Affairs announced an $18.7 million 3 year 'Computer
Education Program' that would approach computer education in terms of a broad edu-
cational program, rather than simply as an exercise in hardware provision. Neverthe-
less computer hardware was an important consideration. The Committee believed that
Schools Commission funds should be used for the purchase of computer hardware by
schools, but as a substantial level of standardisation of equipment was necessary to
achieve a balanced and effective National Computer Education Program this should be
subject to strict guidelines. In the short term they recommended that Commonwealth