The NCOS operating system used in this first implementation was based on RISC OS and ran on ARM hardware.

[10] Acorn continued to produce ARM-based designs, demonstrating its first StrongARM prototype in May 1996,[11] and the Office NC 6 months later.

[12][15] The second generation Network Computer operating system was no longer based on RISC OS.

[16] NC Desktop was the recommended software solution for products based on the StrongARM-based Digital Network Appliance Reference Design (DNARD).

[17] Later NCs were produced based on the Intel Pentium architecture such as products from Accton Technology Corporation[18] and UMAX Data Systems.