Apricot Computers
The British PC maker that ran MS-DOS but refused to be IBM-compatible, and learned the hard way why everyone else gave in.
Behind the brand was ACT of Birmingham, which had sold software and imported the Victor 9000 before designing machines of its own. The Apricot PC arrived in 1983 with Sony 3.5-inch floppies while the rest of the world was still on 5.25, and the 1984 Apricot Portable had an LCD screen and an early stab at voice control.
The machines ran MS-DOS on their own architecture, so software written straight to the IBM PC's hardware simply didn't work. Once the market decided that "PC" meant "IBM clone", Apricot changed course, but the head start was gone. Mitsubishi bought the company in 1990 and closed it in 1999. Alongside Sinclair and Acorn, it is one of the British names that recall a time when the computer industry had more than two capitals.