Acorn Computers was established in 1978 by Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry in the English city of Cambridge. Their first computer, known as the System 1, was released in the following year. Acorn quickly began designing their next system and in 1980 the Acorn System 2 was completed. In the next two years, the Acorn System 3 and System 4 also saw their introduction. The last in the series, the System 5, was released in 1983.

The Acorn System 1 functioned on a MOS 6502 processor and had 1 KB of RAM. The Acorn System 2 had the processor fitted on a Eurocard circuit board and also had a cassette interface. The System 3 traded in the cassette interface for a floppy drive and had extra memory in both RAM and ROM. The System 4 also was upgraded in terms of memory and had not one but two floppy drives. The System 5 also had two floppy drives and had space for 7 or 10 Eurocards in the casing. All microcomputers from the series could be connected to an external keyboard. This keyboard has the same casing as the Acorn Atom which would later utilize it.

This microcomputer was targeted for use in laboratories, but the low price meant that the Acorn System 1 was also popular with hobbyists.

The System 1's front board was used as the control panel for the fictional computer, called 'Slave', as shown in the science fiction series Blake's 7 (1981), which was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC.