Once again a venerable name from the UK computing scene is resurrected.
http://www.acorn.eu

I wonder what this lot are up to - the previous use of the brand name was little more than x86 box shifters.

This forum offers little insight.
http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewto ... =13&t=5052

"Our specific plans for New Acorn computer systems & software are a guarded secret "

Well that's helpful

"I can confirm for those interested that Acorn has indeed trademarked the term 'Podule' "

Answers on a postcard?

It's been months in the making. Seems unlikely to have a pre-Christmas release this year, whatever they're working on. He said early in the thread that they're a team of 12 which is quite ambitious for a start-up in a niche market in this financial environment.

It's really hard to imagine what they are working on. An ARM based desktop-in-a-keyboard would be the obvious conclusion to jump to. Possibly with the capability of running Windows 8 now there is the ARM build. That's something previous RISK hardware has been unable to claim, so maybe now is the time?

Well, in a cupboard upstairs, I have a RISC PC with it's ARM and Intel dual architecture.

Produce was Acorn's term for expansion cards. These would give you SCSI, scanners, video in/out, GEN Lock, etc.. I've even got an IDE podule in my A305. So I am guessing that your imagined computer in a keyboard would give you expansion products in some form.

USB would be the obvious choice. I think the days of the proprietary expansion bus is long gone, and a USB interface chip is just a few pennies.

Makes sense to me. My guess is that this is a nostalgia grab, but a pretty meaningless one. The word "podule" in this context only means something to those in the know.

Will we see a new generation of RISC OS machines though.

Well, the Pi and RISC OS Open are showing the way - it's certainly an affordable way to get such a system up and running.

If there was a RISC S capable machine, I expect it would dual boot with a version of Windows.