I know what you mean.... :-) I didn;t think Apricot were too bad in this respect. The original Apricto doesn't seem to cotnain any ASICs, although there are programmed microcontrolelrs in the keyboard and in the floppy drives (the latter being SOny units), it's the stnadard Sony-progammed microcontroller). There isan 8089 in there, though... I didn't think the F1 had much custom silcion in it either. I think I have the tech mnaul for it somewhere, I can check for you. The expanison cards for the Apricot do seem to cotnain a lot of ASICs, particularly thigns like the colour video card. Not all UK comptuers ar full of custom silicon. In particular : Research Machines : 380Z, 480Z are OK, Nimbus is full of ASICs Newbrain : A Cop 400 microcontroller is the only custom part that I remember : Acorn : 'System' machines and the Atom are OK., The BBC micro and B+ have 2 ULAs. Second processros have a ULA each (the 'tube ULA'). The ACW, etc, therefore cotnain 3 ULAs -- 2 on the B+ board, one o nthe coprocesor. THe Electron is designed round a ULA. Torch : The Beeb corpocessors don't have Tube ULAs, and are OK as a rsult. The XXX also has no custom parts otehr than PALs (and the boot ROM). IIRC the quad-X has a custom control processor thing for which there is a data sheet. WCW. The MG1 and Hitec seem to have no ULAs.PALs, yes, ROMs, yes, microcontrollers maybe. Sinclair : MK14 and ZX80 are OK, everything later (including peripherals) are full of ULAs Jupiter Cantab : The Ace cotnains no ULAs Amstrad : Stuffed full of the unpleasant chips! Dragon : No ULAs that I have ever seen And that's just the ones I can remember... -tony