Comments on: Apricot Computers: An underrated British brand

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:58:56 +0000

Apricot was a fascinating, short-lived brand. There’s a collection of their adverts on this site:

https://nosher.net/archives/computers/apricot_dtp_praccomp_may88

Which shows they dabbled in servers, DTP and the education market at various times.

As ever with PC clones, by the early 1990s it was hard for Western manufacturers to differentiate themselves or compete with lower-cost producers: a lesson Commodore also learned.

The “Troubleshooter” documentary is a wonderful example of the kinds of high-quality, educational and insightful documentaries the BBC used to produce. I think I might even vaguely remember it being broadcast, although I was a child at the time. They don’t make em like they used to, sad to say.

By: neo

neo — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:41:44 +0000

Apricot was also noteworthy in licensing Microchannel from IBM. While Tandy and Dell announced Microchannel PCs, Apricot actually shipped them in quantity and stuck with it for several years.
Tandy 5000mc

did Dell actually shipped Microchannel

By: Gary Osborne

Gary Osborne — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 13:14:53 +0000

I support this message! A good summary. The coda is that Mitsubishi bought Apricot because then the Japanese, hidebound by their character set (impacting displays and keyboards), didn’t see themselves as good makers of PCs, so they bought Apricot. But ultimately it got shutdown as you say. Too many clones.