Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry founded Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridgeshire in 1978. Production included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn is best known for its BBC Micro model B computer and its involvement in the BBC's Domesday Project around 1984-1985.

Many British IT professionals gained their early experiences on Acorns, which were technically advanced when compared with more commercially successful hardware.

Acorn Computers Ltd's subsidiary company Arm Ltd worked with Apple to develop the RISC chip. Another subsidiary, Online Media, pioneered set top boxes and video-on-demand, but the company was broken up from 1998 and ceased trading in 2000.