Acorn Plus 3

What It Does

The Acorn Plus 3 is the largest of all the expansions ever produced for the Acorn Electron. It is a colossal 46cm x 19.5cm x 5cm creme coloured interface which connects to the edge connector of the Acorn Electron.

The Acorn Plus 3 is an ADFS 1D00 interface and 3.5" single-sided disc drive. When connected to the machine, the memory locations &E00 to &1D00 of the Electron are used by this interface. When originally released, this feature meant many programs simply transferred from tape to disc would not work with it. However, thanks to the dedicated work of many Acorn Electron officiandoes over the years, there are currently several hundred professional games that have been recoded to run flawlessly on this interface. Only a few long programs, or programs which need to load in several parts, cannot be used with this interface.

The Acorn Plus 3 also features an edge connector and an expansion connector for a second disc drive on its rear. Joystick interfaces or the Acorn Electron Plus 1/AP1 or Slogger's Rombox/Rombox+ can be connected to the PLUS 3's expansion port.

The Acorn Plus 3 requires more power to run than the standard PSU unit supplied with the Acorn Electron can supply. When connected to an Acorn Electron, the disc drive purposefully obstructs the Elk's PSU socket. Instead, a special ACORN PLUS 3 PSU must be connected to the left of the Acorn Plus 3. This then powers the whole unit (and makes a quite disconcerting humming sound!).

All ADFS 1D00 discs in our archives are single-sided and will run without problem on an Acorn Plus 3.

The Acorn Plus 3 came supplied with a User Guide, and a disc containing the programs from the Introductory Cassette.

The Acorn Plus 3 was originally available in high street stores or by mail order from Acornsoft for £229. A second hand Acorn Plus 3 will usually sell on eBay for £30-£50.