Unlike the Apricot F1 which was a kind of bridge between the home-computing and the professional markets, the F2 and the F10 were clearly marketed as business machines.
They were quite similar to the F1, but included an extra expansion slot, more memory and larger storage capacity : two disk-drives for the F2 and one disk-drive and a 10MB hard-disk for the F10.
Like the F1, the F2 and F10 had an infra-red interface for the keyboard and the mouse/trackball (the same infra-red mouseball pointing device used with the Apricot Portable). This interesting feature was not very convenient because you had to ensure that there was no object blocking the signals between the keyboard/mouse and the computer, and you also had to power the keyboard with batteries! However, the systems originally shipped with a plastic light-pipe that could be connected between the keyboard and CPU so that obstacles would not block the signal.
The F2/F10 were quite similar in shape to the F1. The same narrow, very deep and stylish case. The F10 had the same disk front-panel as the F1 but a different arrangement of the LED indicators (power, caps, disk, stop), infra-red sensors and logo. The F2 had different shaped disk-drives but identical LEDs, logo and infra-red sensors as the F1.
The F2 and the F10 use an Apricot-modified version of MS-DOS, so they were not really IBM compatible.
They were provided with a nice graphical and iconized interface called Activity. Integrated were a desktop, and software including a wordprocessor, communication, painting and Basic. They were also sold with GEM Write, GEM Paint and the GEM desktop.
These systems were quite expensive and not really IBM PC compatible, so they were not a great success, even in the UK, their native country. Initially, there were not even compatible with the F1. A new ROM had to be developed for the F1 !
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
looking for one of these also, preferably in the US. dreyfusshudson at yahoo dot com. Thanks.
Monday 7th September 2015
Chris ( NJ)
I seem to recall my favoured computer was called The Apricot Vine.But my ultimate wish list computer was the Apricot Xen.The Apricot I hired may have been called The Vine.They really were mega money to buy.Considering my freehold shop was £18000 to buy.A further £2500 for a computer was out of the question.Multiply by 8 .Shop worth £150,000 today is like £20000 for the Apricot.At that time Canon invented the colour photo copier and their sales marketing team were geared up to hire it.I wanted one.At the Which? Computer Show they were all stunned when I tried to buy one!Took ages to get back to me with a price.One Million Pounds! Recently I bought a colour A3 copier,scanner,printer $ a windows 7 computer all in for £600.I think to myself.I wonder if there are still businesses around the world paying for the monthly hire purchase agreement for their apricot computer and canon colour copier!
Tuesday 31st January 2012
chris ze miller
In Feb 1986 I hired an Apricot from Dik Bic in Shrewsbury and paid £184 for the month.I could not learn Gem Write and gave it back.In comparison in January 1988 I paid £582 for an Amstrad 9512 and within a short space of time was printing out my mail order catalogue without having to refer to the instruction book.In those days one could go to evening classes to learn how to use Wordstar.Conclusion.Software that needs instruction books or evening classes is poorly written $ best avoided.Both Wordstar $ Gem Write have totally disappeared.
Tuesday 31st January 2012
chris ze miller (Shropshire,UK)
NAME
Apricot F2 / F10
MANUFACTURER
ACT
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
United Kingdom
YEAR
1985
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
''Activity'' graphical interface (Desktop, wordprocessor, drawing, communication and Basic)
KEYBOARD
infrared full-stroke keyboard with editing and numeric keypads, 92 keys, 8 function keys
CPU
Intel 8086
SPEED
4,77 Mhz
RAM
512k, up to 768k
ROM
32k, up to 64k
TEXT MODES
80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
320 x 256 (16 colors), 640 x 200 (4 colors), 640 x 256 (4 colors)
COLORS
16
SOUND
Beeper
I/O PORTS
Serial port, parallel port, RGB video out, Composite video out, 2 x expansion slot (Apricot F series)
BUILT IN MEDIA
F2 : 2 x 3.5'' disk-drives, double-sided, 720k each F10 : 1 x disk-drive (720k) and a 10Mb hard-disk
