Alas ye “Retronics” fans, it’s not the return of the fantastic Acorn Atom that taught you to program properly on a 6502 in the early 1980s and publish about it in black and white in Elektor! It’s…. Intel’s Atom, which started off life as a processor for netbooks around 2007-10, and then was re-purposed for tablets and phones. After a rather unsuccessful time and causing Intel a niggling $4 billion loss per year, that very Atom is now back with a design optimized for drones, IoT, VR headsets, cameras and autonomous cars.

Intel says the new Atom will work with its RealSense ZR300 depth-sensing camera, suggesting VR and augmented reality applications. They will use Intel’s Gen 9 graphics.

Elektor on a number of occasions attempted to team up with Intel to bring the original Atom to the DIY audience with projects and a global competition, sadly to no avail. We’ll see if the new Atom stands a fighting chance with all that ARM competition around.