[5][6] As a "smart videotex terminal"[5] and a "complete turnkey comms solution"[7] featuring Prestel connectivity and built-in word processing and spreadsheet capabilities, the extensibility of the product through the development of additional software appealed to customers such as Pickfords.
Acting as a personal computer, desirable features included the ability to run existing business software, offer networking support and connectivity to mainframes, connect to public data services such as Prestel and Telecom Gold mailboxes, and also support services over other cable-based infrastructure (such as cable television infrastructure then being introduced in the United Kingdom).
A meeting between Curry and product design consultant David Morgan, who had approached Acorn with an idea for a personal computer, led to a deeper collaboration that would establish the nature of the Communicator's physical characteristics.
Thus, a "basic keyboard unit" would be central in any eventual product configuration, being augmented by a telephone, display, storage, printer and other peripherals and accessories.
Alongside the industrial design activity, Ram Bannerjee of Acorn's research and development division was directed to find existing Acorn-developed components that would fit in the physical unit to deliver "a smaller, neater, faster, sweeter machine".
The Communicator was envisaged as being an always-on device, capable of being programmed to access online services at predetermined times, and it was therefore decided not to provide a power switch on the unit itself.
[10]: 6 A separate file and print server "in the same style as the Communicator itself" offering floppy and hard drive support plus a Centronics printer interface, based on the MOS Technology 6512 CPU and having 64 KB RAM plus 64 KB ROM, was intended to be the means by which Communicator machines, fitted with a standard Econet module,[14] would access files and print documents.
[24] The components chosen and the capabilities provided are broadly similar to the BT Merlin M2105 variant of the Acorn Electron, with an upgraded CPU, the addition of teletext circuitry, the provision for Econet, and the omission of speech synthesis hardware apparently refining the Communicator as a product offering in the same general category.
[22]: 6.76 The development system for the Communicator as intended for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) use was centred on the BBC Master 128 with ARM second processor, floppy and hard drives, a monochrome monitor, and an external ROM expansion.
[31] In 1986, Acorn co-founder Chris Curry was reported to have recruited the team responsible for developing the Communicator - 12 employees in all including technical project manager Ram Bannerjee - for his new company, General Information Systems, with one potential application of the machine or a follow-on product suggested as being the online submission of news stories by journalists and other newspaper contributors.