Castle Technology Limited | |
Type: | Private |
Foundation: | Colchester, England |
Founder: | |
Location City: | Cambridge |
Location Country: | England |
Area Served: | Worldwide |
Key People: | |
Industry: | Computer hardware Computer software |
Products: | |
Divisions: | Tematic |
Successor: | RISC OS Developments Ltd |
Defunct: | 2018 |
Castle Technology Limited, named after Framlingham Castle,[1] was a British computer company based in Cambridge, England. It began as a producer of ARM computers and manufactured the Acorn-branded range of desktop computers that run RISC OS.[2]
Following the break-up of Acorn in 1998, Castle Technology bought the rights to continue production of the RISC PC and A7000+ computers under the Acorn brand.[3] Castle Technology later released the Iyonix PC in November 2002,[4] the first desktop computer to use the Intel XScale microarchitecture and then bought the rights to the RISC OS Technology from Pace in July 2003.[5]
See also: Acorn Computers. After Acorn withdrew from the desktop computer industry in 1998, Castle Technology acquired the rights to produce the A7000, A7000+ and RISC PC using the Acorn brand.[6]
In 2001, development started on the Iyonix PC (codenamed Tungsten) as a set-top unit (STU) in secret by engineers at Pace's Shipley campus along with a 32-bit version of RISC OS 4 (known as RISC OS 5). When management discovered the project the campus was closed.[7]
Castle Technology acquired the proposed designs and the original engineers from Pace to further develop the Tungsten into a desktop computer. Robert Sprowson, the original hardware designer, declined to join Castle Technology and so Peter Wild was recruited.[7] The Iyonix PC was released six months later. Although it was well received, it was not designed for long-term production and therefore used some components that were near obsolete when it was released.[7]
A problem for the Iyonix PC was that it used leaded components which were outlawed with the adoption of Directive 2002–95/EC in February 2003 by the European Union. However, by this time Castle Technology was financially troubled and could not afford to re-engineer the Iyonix PC without the leaded components.[7] The remaining Iyonix stock were passed to Iyonix Limited which stopped distribution on 30 September 2008.[8]
In 2004, Castle Technology acquired Tematic to further development of RISC OS in embedded systems.[9] In December 2005, Castle Technology moved its main office to the former premises of its software development division,[10] following the migration of Tematic to a neighbouring premises in Signet Court, Cambridge.[11]
In 2018 RISC OS Developments acquired Castle Technology Ltd including the Intellectual Property.[12]