The Eureka A4 established a new standard for assistive tools for vision-impaired people. Its sleek design, its features and user-friendliness were unique compared to other devices available at that time. The device still remains in wide use now, more than twenty years after it was conceived, probably setting a record for the world's longest-serving personal computer. The Eureka A4 was launched in the times of the first IBM PCs. It was the first personal computer equipped with (then revolutionary) low power floppy disk drive, which was made by Citizen Watch company.

The device had a Braille keyboard, voice output, in-built modem, a rich portfolio of word processing, educational and personal organizer functions, ROM-based operating system, and even a sophisticated music composer.

The Eureka A4 attracted a number of international awards, such as the Rolls-Royce Qantas Award for Engineering Excellence, Winston Gordon Award for Technological Achievement in the Field of Blindness, and many others.

The large family of Eureka users included school children, professionals as well as pensioners, and also many famous people (such as Stevie Wonder).

The 'braille' buttons on the machine are numbered 321 space 456. So pressing buttons 124 will make the machine say H. The Braille Alphabet is shown in one of the pictures.

Our Eureka A4 was manufactured by Robotron Pty from Melbourne Australia. It is an Australian research & development and manufacturing company of various speciality high-technology equipment. The company was founded by 1983 by a Czech-born engineer Milan Hudecek. Its products include assistive technology equipment for the blind, such as reading machines, navigational and word-processing tools, etc.

One of the pictures shows Stevie Wonder using his Eureka A4.

Our Eureka A4 is complete with original documentation within a Samsonite case with a serial number of 2579 and was very kindly donated by Jefferson Tarn

Manufacturer: Robotron
Date: 1990

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH32122. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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