There was an ARCIn, but was there an ARCOut, or an ARCShake-it-all-about?
Amongst the various things sold and distributed by the late David Holden through APDL were the Acorn-related products of Baildon Electronics – IDE interfaces, in the form of ARCIn. Following Dave’s unfortunate passing, Baildon’s Dave Hitchens has teamed up with CJE Micro’s/4D to ensure distribution of the range of the interfaces (including firmware updates) continues.
According to the joint announcement from Dave Hitchins and CJE’s Chris Evans, it will take several months for everything to be properly organised, so they ask that customers please be patient. Meanwhile, Chris says that he does have a few second hand ARCIn 5 and 6 cards in stock.
Baildon Electronics were based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and their products weren’t limited to interfaces for Acorn systems. According to Dave Hitchins’ LinkedIn page, the firm – in which he was a partner from 1986 until 1994 – also supplied CB accessories, and provided general OEM for various companies. On Wikipedia’s JukeBox ‘talk’ page, Dave explains that they helped design a CD Juke Box with the Fender logo, and that he even has one (along with most of the schematics and source code for it).
The firm had a shop in Shipley, which was put up for auction earlier this year, and Dave Hitchins was invited down to recover any of Baildon’s property remaining on the premises – and it seems Dave was one of the group of unlisted stand-sharing retro-exhibitors at this year’s Wakefield show, at which a good deal of the recovered property was available.
