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Home computers -a history

No ZX Spectrum of Commodore 64? Perhaps the two most influential computers of all time, as they got a whole generation (approximately those whose were teenagers in the 1980s) into computers. Nobody outside the UK had heard of the Alice 90, it was only sold in France. Terrible feature.
 
Most influential computer of all time?

Probably the IMSAI because of WarGames.

Or maybe the Archimedes because of RISC and ARM.

Or just possibly the IBM PC?
 
Computers or computing?
Like it or not, Amstrad/Alan Sugar are WAY out in front as the most influential. That was where a certain Mr Gates got his major break. Bill Gates got financially screwed short term but was/is shrewd enough to see way further than Amstrad
 
Rcook said:
No ZX Spectrum of Commodore 64? Perhaps the two most influential computers of all time, as they got a whole generation (approximately those whose were teenagers in the 1980s) into computers. Nobody outside the UK had heard of the Alice 90, it was only sold in France. Terrible feature.
Click to expand...

The ‘feature’ is just information about the book.

I suspect that will have a few more pictures in it...

It’s a history not a competition.

There’s just no pleasing some people!

Stephen
 
david ellwood said:
Most influential computer of all time?

Probably the IMSAI because of WarGames.

Or maybe the Archimedes because of RISC and ARM.

Or just possibly the IBM PC?
Click to expand...

Hard to say!

You could also consider the Apple Mac as it was the first to implement Xerox’s WIMP that we all use today.

Stephen
 
Vinny said:
Like it or not, Amstrad/Alan Sugar are WAY out in front as the most influential. That was where a certain Mr Gates got his major break.
Click to expand...

I’m not convinced you have your timeline right there! The Amstrad PCs were a bargain-bucket clone that arrived sometime around 86-87, i.e. long after the IBM XT and the Compacs etc. The PC1512 & 1640 were a very UK-centric thing and even here had very little take-up in the corporate world (which bought the far more expensive but far better built and more reliabke IBMs and Compacs). To highlight the timeline better the 8086 Amstrads only arrived at around the time IBM had moved onto the far more advanced PS/2s range. I realise Gates wanted his OS on the Amstrads, but he wanted it everywhere and was clever enough to play a long game. Sugar never really understood computers at all, he’s just a ‘make ‘em cheap, pile ‘em up’ east end barrow-boy! I’ll never forgive him for the styleless abominations that came out under the Sinclair name after he’d bought the company!

PS Home computers in the ‘70s and early ‘80s were very much a local thing, e.g. whilst the various Sinclairs and BBC B owned the UK market they made little if any impression on the USA where Apple, Commodore etc were dominant. For better or worse it is the IBM PC and Microsoft that moved the market to a global standard.
 
If I get bored enough I'll get some of my old computers out to take photo's off. That includes my very first computer (a ZX81), a couple of Spectrums and a couple of BBC micro's. Sadly I don't think I kept any of my early PC's (my first one being an Amstrad) or laptops (I really wish I'd kept my Compaq SLT286) although I still have quite a few of my later ones.
 
SteveG said:
Sadly I don't think I kept any of my early PC's
Click to expand...

I wish I’d kept my first PC, an IBM PS/2 Model 30, the base-model PS/2; 8086 CPU, MCGA monitor and a 20MB HD! I bought it second hand in 1989-90 to learn COBOL, Pascal etc. A beautifully built machine, I even had a pathetically slow modem card so I could get onto some online bulletin boards etc. I still use an IBM Model M PS/2 keyboard to this day (I have an SDL to USB converter cable so I can use it with my Mac, I’ll see if I can get it working with my iPad Pro too sometime!).
 
Tony L said:
I’m not convinced you have your timeline right there! The Amstrad PCs were a bargain-bucket clone that arrived sometime around 86-87, i.e. long after the IBM XT and the Compacs etc. The PC1512 & 1640 were a very UK-centric thing and even here had very little take-up in the corporate world (which bought the far more expensive but far better built and more reliabke IBMs and Compacs). I realise Gates wanted his OS on the Amstrads, but he wanted it everywhere and was clever enough to play a long game. Sugar never really understood computers at all, he’s just a ‘make ‘em cheap, pile ‘em up’ east end barrow-boy! I’ll never forgive him for the styleless abominations that came out under the Sinclair name after he’d bought the company!

PS Home computers in the ‘70s and early ‘80s were very much a local thing, e.g. whilst the various Sinclairs and BBC B owned the UK market they made little if any impression on the USA where Apple, Commodore etc were dominant.
Click to expand...

Yes, pretty much this.

It was Microsoft getting DOS onto IBM PCs and its clones that was his big break (by ripping off Digital Research's QDOS, standing for 'Quick and Dirty Operating System), and then getting Windows 3.0 and 3.1 onto them out of the box. The IBM PC, forerunner of every Windows 10 PC we now have, was getting well established in businesses by 1986 when the cheap Amstrad clone was brought out (before that the made their own home PC, to compete with the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 etc, then bought Sinclair and made his unreliable versions of the Spectrum alongside his own). Before he brought out the PC clone, he brought out a dedicated word processor.

stephen bennett said:
The ‘feature’ is just information about the book.

I suspect that will have a few more pictures in it...

It’s a history not a competition.

There’s just no pleasing some people!

Stephen
Click to expand...

My point was that those two machines were probably the two most influential machines on a generation who became part of the IT explosion of the 80s and 90s, like myself. The Commodore 64 was a huge selling machine in the UK, USA and most of the rest world, as was the ZX Spectrum (in various guises, in the USA it was branded Timex Sinclair 2048). If The Grauniad is going to run a feature, it might be sensible to make it relevant and show more popular home computers that people used, not obscure ones that weren't even available in the UK.
 
Fair enough.

Personally, was quite pleased to see something I hadn’t seen before.

I think calling it a ‘feature’ is a bit of a stretch.

But I’m looking forward to seeing the book anyway.

Stephen
 
cjarchez said:
Purely for its infamous failure, the ICL OPD.
Click to expand...

Hardly surprising it failed - it was a Sinclair QL inside and that was a lash-up job from day one - ISTR that the design forgot to make room for the OS ROM so that had to plugged in as a dongle to get it to work!

[edit]

And the microdrives which were a loop tape cartridge that stretched after about one use losing all your data. Utter s**te.
 
^^^^^^
Exactly!
My father worked in ICL and brought one home for use/testing. Broke down more than ran. Why oh why tape microdrives when everyone else had floppy disc. Even if the tape didn't fail the access time was pathetic compared to floppy drive.
 
cjarchez said:
Why oh why tape microdrives when everyone else had floppy disc.
Click to expand...

Simple answer:
sir-clive-sinclair_1494610c.jpg
 
SteveG said:
........I really wish I'd kept my Compaq SLT286.........
Click to expand...

I've still got one in the loft which I liberated from one of my old jobs. I was in charge of the IT budget and the management board all wanted one so I added one to the order for myself for "familiarisation purpose". Like all IT in those days, they were extremely expensive but built like the proverbial brick sh!t house. The management board's enthusiasm for portable computers waned rapidly once they'd picked them up a few times. Lugable rather than portable!
 
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