Acorn Advert - August 1983

Acorn wasn't particularly well know for its own-branded peripherals, so this advert is fairly unusual not only for that, but also because the printing technology in use - spark-eroded carbon - was considered as an evolutionary dead end and was obsoleted particularly quickly.

This printer, which was actually a re-bandged Olivetti JP101, wasn't of the "spark jet" design as used by Sinclair's diminutive printer for its Spectrum, where a spark between the print head and the platen burned away coating on the paper to reveal a constrasting colour beneath, but instead used a spark to burn off particles from a carbon rod which were then fired at the paper.

The advantage of this design over, say, Sinclair's, was that regular paper could be used - indeed the JP101 supported regular fan-fold paper or paper rolls^[1]. Unfortunately, the toner wasn't fixed or cured in any way, and so was prone to smudging.

The original Olivetti printer looks like it was only made for a single year^[2], so it's tempting to think that Acorn picked up an unsold batch of them and decided to stick the company name on in order to have a slightly better printer on the market than arch-rival Sinclair.

Acorn's badged version retailed for £365, which is around £1,550 in 2025.