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Multi-million dollar Cheyenne supercomputer auction ends with $480,085 bid — buyer walked away with 8,064 Intel Xeon Broadwell CPUs, 313TB DDR4-2400 ECC RAM, and some water leaks
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enewmen
Distinguished
- Mar 6, 2005
- 2,249
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When I was in High School, kids would stay after class to play on the PET.
Lots of games where available at the time.
http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/Commodore_PET_screen_shots.htm
While some where playing old computer games, others actually did homework.
It seems kids today don't have fun like they used to.
Lots of games where available at the time.
http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/Commodore_PET_screen_shots.htm
While some where playing old computer games, others actually did homework.
It seems kids today don't have fun like they used to.
- Jul 27, 2011
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This slide show should be required viewing for those kids in those "Back in my day we didn't have these new wifi receivers so you could move the TV anywhere" AT&T commercial kids. Let's see them try and deal with an Altair or Pascal programming language. Or the green screen Apple IIe.
Brian Richardson
Honorable
- Apr 5, 2013
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The Tandy 100/102 definitely needs to be on the list. You also need to correct the history of the Asus Eee PC ... the original unit was an Intel Celeron 900 MHz, using an older Intel chipset. The Atom came after the first EeePC.
Chris Guertin
Honorable
- Apr 5, 2013
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- 10,510
Wow, what a poorly researched article... IBM was a failure at PCs? LOL The PS/2 was never a commercial success? Empires were built selling them back in the day. Tons of money was made, which I think defines "commercial success" (I was there...). Microchannel (plug and play many years ahead of it's time), Token Ring, etc etc added to IBM's success in the early to middle PC era. They had only started losing money in the PC business in the early 2000's before the PC Division was sold to Lenovo (who is poised to be #1 worldwide this year). Really folks, a little research would go a long ways. Young people might read these articles and believe what you say is accurate.
Of the multiple errors in the article, the most egregious is calling the PS/2 a failure. Purely stupid remark, that's offensive to those of us who actually used them.
For one, OS/2 did not come with the PS/2. It could run on a standard PC/AT, and the problem wasn't the delay in the GUI, but that it was designed for the 286 (in the 1.x) versions, and couldn't run DOS applications very well (we referred to the compatibility box as the "penalty box"). Only later was it moved to the 386.
Back to the PS/2. It was an EXTREMELY successful line, and IBM only lost it's market dominance when it moved away from Microchannel. Year after year it had the leading selling computer in the market (PS/2 55, then 57, for example). It was not copied because it could not be copied, not by the choice of competitors.
Also, IBM did not patent the Microchannel, but it was considered impossible to copy it without violating an IBM patent. In reality, PC makers also had to pay IBM 3% for machines using the AT-bus (commonly incorrectly called the ISA bus).
Please, get your 'facts' right, or consult with someone old enough who knows better.
For one, OS/2 did not come with the PS/2. It could run on a standard PC/AT, and the problem wasn't the delay in the GUI, but that it was designed for the 286 (in the 1.x) versions, and couldn't run DOS applications very well (we referred to the compatibility box as the "penalty box"). Only later was it moved to the 386.
Back to the PS/2. It was an EXTREMELY successful line, and IBM only lost it's market dominance when it moved away from Microchannel. Year after year it had the leading selling computer in the market (PS/2 55, then 57, for example). It was not copied because it could not be copied, not by the choice of competitors.
Also, IBM did not patent the Microchannel, but it was considered impossible to copy it without violating an IBM patent. In reality, PC makers also had to pay IBM 3% for machines using the AT-bus (commonly incorrectly called the ISA bus).
Please, get your 'facts' right, or consult with someone old enough who knows better.
belardo
Splendid
- Nov 23, 2008
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[citation][nom]Ioannis Doukakis[/nom]I believe that you must include two more computers:a) Epson HX-20, the first actual notebook with batteryb) ZX-Spectrum one of the most popular personal computers[/citation] The HX-20 was not a game game changer, it had a tiny screen, 4x20 characters which was horrible by 1983 standards. It had very limited functionality. You can copy and paste the few dozen games off the internet... very simply, play 2-3 times then you are bored-games. Think of it as an Apple I.
The ZX-Spectrum never sold many units. They didn't move the industry that much. The original Timex Sinclair 1000/ZX81 was super cheap at $100 in 1982... as a DIY build kit. It competed against the Commodore VIC20 which was bigger and better. But the ZX-Spectrum was never a success, it didn't sell millions like the Commodore or Apple or even Atari 8 bit computers. Mr. Sinclair was pushing these tiny computers as business machines foremost... right, dinky things with fake keys. The ZX sure as hell couldn't compete against the C=64.
Lets see: ZX-Spectrum
PORTS: 1 expansion port and Audio Jack IN & OUT for use with any typical tape recorder to SAVE or LOAD your programs. When using the tape drive, the internal speaker of the ZX did not shut off - so you WOULD hear the tape being used!
That was IT! Later came out with a joystick expansion cartridge to use standard Atari/C= joysticks or NOT, depending on what you bought. It was almost 2 years before the "disk" drive was released AFTER the ZX started shipping. You spent about $150 for the interface and the drive. It used 8-Track tape tech, but it was even smaller and used 2 tracks. It held about 80~100k of data (as the tape stretched with use) until it became useless.
The Commodore64:
PORTS: SERIAL port (Floppy drives), Printer port, Expansion Port (memory or games), Tape-Port, 2 joystick ports.
Thousands of games titles made. Millions of units shipped. The C= was the highest selling 8bit PC of all time.
I never owned a C=64. I still have two functional C=128 computers (which included C=64 mode). I used to run in 640x200 on my C128 with a monitor. With hacks years later, they were able to get COLOR in such high-res mode out of these things.
The Sinclair computers were neat... but they always had crappy cramped keyboards. They made piss-poor business and gaming computers. They were unreliable.
I am OLD enough that I looked at these computers with awe as kid. It wouldn't be until 1984 when my father gives me a 2nd hand VIC20 for my 1st computer. 1985 was my C=128, and 1989 I bought my refurbished Amiga 1000, which I choose over the the A500 at the same price)
The ZX-Spectrum never sold many units. They didn't move the industry that much. The original Timex Sinclair 1000/ZX81 was super cheap at $100 in 1982... as a DIY build kit. It competed against the Commodore VIC20 which was bigger and better. But the ZX-Spectrum was never a success, it didn't sell millions like the Commodore or Apple or even Atari 8 bit computers. Mr. Sinclair was pushing these tiny computers as business machines foremost... right, dinky things with fake keys. The ZX sure as hell couldn't compete against the C=64.
Lets see: ZX-Spectrum
PORTS: 1 expansion port and Audio Jack IN & OUT for use with any typical tape recorder to SAVE or LOAD your programs. When using the tape drive, the internal speaker of the ZX did not shut off - so you WOULD hear the tape being used!
That was IT! Later came out with a joystick expansion cartridge to use standard Atari/C= joysticks or NOT, depending on what you bought. It was almost 2 years before the "disk" drive was released AFTER the ZX started shipping. You spent about $150 for the interface and the drive. It used 8-Track tape tech, but it was even smaller and used 2 tracks. It held about 80~100k of data (as the tape stretched with use) until it became useless.
The Commodore64:
PORTS: SERIAL port (Floppy drives), Printer port, Expansion Port (memory or games), Tape-Port, 2 joystick ports.
Thousands of games titles made. Millions of units shipped. The C= was the highest selling 8bit PC of all time.
I never owned a C=64. I still have two functional C=128 computers (which included C=64 mode). I used to run in 640x200 on my C128 with a monitor. With hacks years later, they were able to get COLOR in such high-res mode out of these things.
The Sinclair computers were neat... but they always had crappy cramped keyboards. They made piss-poor business and gaming computers. They were unreliable.
I am OLD enough that I looked at these computers with awe as kid. It wouldn't be until 1984 when my father gives me a 2nd hand VIC20 for my 1st computer. 1985 was my C=128, and 1989 I bought my refurbished Amiga 1000, which I choose over the the A500 at the same price)
Darkk
Distinguished
- Oct 6, 2003
- 615
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My first experience with a computer in the early 1980s was the Commodore PET. My schools in Northern California bought the machines for both the classrooms and the offices. When my 3rd grade classroom received the new computer I didn't think too much of it at the time. One day the teacher asked us to take a test on the computer so she ran a program. Somehow I managed to "break" out of the program which brought me to the ready prompt. I was like..oh boy. What now?? I tried typing "GO", "help", "Hello" and "???" which didn't work. She walked over and type in "RUN" which restarted the program. I was like wow! lol. When the school year ended I was lucky enough to take the school's computer home for the summer so I can learn how to program and use it. I do not know how they let me take home an very expensive piece of equipment at the time when in fact belongs to the school. Yes when the summer ended I brought it back and it was put back into the classroom to be used again by the students. I can only guess the school decided to benefit the students to have more computer time with it. Much like today where schools bought the Apple iPad for their students to use and take home as part of the studies. Ever since my experience with Commodore computers I actually owned Vic-20, C64 and the Amiga 500. I would have kept using the Amiga 500 if it weren't for the annoying screen flicker compared to the rock solid screen of the IBM's VGA video adapter.
Just like the Apple's the hardware for the Commodore computers were very expensive. I mean $400 for a disk drive??? And it only stored 170K per side!! So for years I had to use the tape drives until my parents were lucky enough to buy one one.
Times have changed. Now everything fits in the palm of our hands for only few bucks.
I've been very fortunate enough to have lived through 1980s as a very young kid to experience the computer and video game revolution. Great memories!!
Just like the Apple's the hardware for the Commodore computers were very expensive. I mean $400 for a disk drive??? And it only stored 170K per side!! So for years I had to use the tape drives until my parents were lucky enough to buy one one.
Times have changed. Now everything fits in the palm of our hands for only few bucks.
I've been very fortunate enough to have lived through 1980s as a very young kid to experience the computer and video game revolution. Great memories!!
belardo
Splendid
- Nov 23, 2008
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[citation][nom]Spinoza1[/nom]Also, amazingly, you forgot to include the Atari ST, which competed with, and was in many ways better, than the Amiga. It's certainly a more significant computer than the PS/2.[/citation] The Atari ST didn't have an effect on the computer industry or technology. Mind you, the Atari ST were always very SEXY 80's computer, including up to the Falcon. But the Atari ST was always the substandard computer.
Quick history (I was a teen during this era):
1980+ Amiga was developed by the Amiga Company - with Jay Miner designing the custom chips for graphics / Sound & I/O controller. Jay Miner designed the Atari 8 bit computers (400/800) which were successful.
1984 - Apple Ships the Macintosh computer ($2500)
Around this time (83~84), Amiga Company was running out of money. Jay Miner and team show their tech to ATARI and get a LOAN so they can keep paying their staff & bills. If at a certain time, the loan is not paid back - ATARI would owns the tech. So they later showed their tech to Commodore... who agreed to PAY off the loan and properly buy the Amiga tech & staff. If commodore wasn't operated by idiots and greedy people who used Commodore as a tax-scam, they could have ruled the computer market. Note, during this time - the CEO of C= was thrown out (Jack Tramel who had also started the stupid C=16/+4 8bit line) who then went and BOUGHT Atari. It would take a whole book to explain it - but this was a bit of a mess between Atari and Commodore. This legal mess caused some delay of the Amiga, thus allowing the engineers that followed Jack to Atari who had some knowledge of the inner workings of the developing Amiga tech to make their own 68000 based computers which would become the Atari ST.
Anyways....
1985 (summer) - The Amiga 1000 ships ($1200) - Commodore was smart to not put on any C= Chicken lips logo (Only the UK versions had the Commodore name stamped on them as shown in the slide show). Like the Mac, the signatures of the development team is under the plastic top cover. The computer has 256/512k internal memory with a PnP expansion bus. The single slot out on the Amiga 1000 could expand into 4 Amiga slots + IBM PC emulation slots. (IBM emulation was a waste of time and money).
1985 (Summer) The Atari ST 520 ships ($800). Atari ST Operating System was TOS and used GEM for the GUI. Hence, the name Jackintosh. It was a variant of DR-DOS - so it was a SINGLE tasking computer with ALL the limitations of MS-DOS (8.3 file names) with a GUI that looked like a cross between Windows 2.0 & Macintosh... typical ugly 80s. Amiga had 4096 colors and could display ALL 4096 colors at the same time... the ST had 512 colors and could do 16 in 320x200 (gaming) 4 in 620x200. With AmigaOS 3.0 (1991) I was able to run 16 color desktop in 640x400 mode (I overscanned it to 720x480) - but just used 8 colors.
Where the ST was better than Amiga was the built-in MIDI ports, which was very useful more musicans. The B&W high-res display was also an important and useful feature for the serious side of things. But IF you wanted COLOR (for games) you would need another monitor to connect to the computer. Other than that, the Mac and Amiga computers were better built and offered a lot more expansion options.
With the hack-hardware I used intenrally on my Amiga 1000, I added 14Mhz CPU (which could switch to the original CPU), a VGA-deinterlacer card which allowed me to use VGA monitors for flicker-free display.
The Amiga shipped with a multi-tasking OS from day one. IT WAS AMAZING... It would take Microsoft 10 years to do this with Windows95 for their consumer market. MacOS didn't multi-task until 2000 with MacOS X. One of the COOL features of AmigaOS (that MacOS 1~9 and Windows 9x did NOT) was the scroll bars in windows... they would change size according to the amount of hidden information. In Win98 or MAC, it was a fixed block you moved... if it would.
So no... the Atari ST did not really leave its mark in the history of computers.
Quick history (I was a teen during this era):
1980+ Amiga was developed by the Amiga Company - with Jay Miner designing the custom chips for graphics / Sound & I/O controller. Jay Miner designed the Atari 8 bit computers (400/800) which were successful.
1984 - Apple Ships the Macintosh computer ($2500)
Around this time (83~84), Amiga Company was running out of money. Jay Miner and team show their tech to ATARI and get a LOAN so they can keep paying their staff & bills. If at a certain time, the loan is not paid back - ATARI would owns the tech. So they later showed their tech to Commodore... who agreed to PAY off the loan and properly buy the Amiga tech & staff. If commodore wasn't operated by idiots and greedy people who used Commodore as a tax-scam, they could have ruled the computer market. Note, during this time - the CEO of C= was thrown out (Jack Tramel who had also started the stupid C=16/+4 8bit line) who then went and BOUGHT Atari. It would take a whole book to explain it - but this was a bit of a mess between Atari and Commodore. This legal mess caused some delay of the Amiga, thus allowing the engineers that followed Jack to Atari who had some knowledge of the inner workings of the developing Amiga tech to make their own 68000 based computers which would become the Atari ST.
Anyways....
1985 (summer) - The Amiga 1000 ships ($1200) - Commodore was smart to not put on any C= Chicken lips logo (Only the UK versions had the Commodore name stamped on them as shown in the slide show). Like the Mac, the signatures of the development team is under the plastic top cover. The computer has 256/512k internal memory with a PnP expansion bus. The single slot out on the Amiga 1000 could expand into 4 Amiga slots + IBM PC emulation slots. (IBM emulation was a waste of time and money).
1985 (Summer) The Atari ST 520 ships ($800). Atari ST Operating System was TOS and used GEM for the GUI. Hence, the name Jackintosh. It was a variant of DR-DOS - so it was a SINGLE tasking computer with ALL the limitations of MS-DOS (8.3 file names) with a GUI that looked like a cross between Windows 2.0 & Macintosh... typical ugly 80s. Amiga had 4096 colors and could display ALL 4096 colors at the same time... the ST had 512 colors and could do 16 in 320x200 (gaming) 4 in 620x200. With AmigaOS 3.0 (1991) I was able to run 16 color desktop in 640x400 mode (I overscanned it to 720x480) - but just used 8 colors.
Where the ST was better than Amiga was the built-in MIDI ports, which was very useful more musicans. The B&W high-res display was also an important and useful feature for the serious side of things. But IF you wanted COLOR (for games) you would need another monitor to connect to the computer. Other than that, the Mac and Amiga computers were better built and offered a lot more expansion options.
With the hack-hardware I used intenrally on my Amiga 1000, I added 14Mhz CPU (which could switch to the original CPU), a VGA-deinterlacer card which allowed me to use VGA monitors for flicker-free display.
The Amiga shipped with a multi-tasking OS from day one. IT WAS AMAZING... It would take Microsoft 10 years to do this with Windows95 for their consumer market. MacOS didn't multi-task until 2000 with MacOS X. One of the COOL features of AmigaOS (that MacOS 1~9 and Windows 9x did NOT) was the scroll bars in windows... they would change size according to the amount of hidden information. In Win98 or MAC, it was a fixed block you moved... if it would.
So no... the Atari ST did not really leave its mark in the history of computers.
belardo
Splendid
- Nov 23, 2008
- 3,540
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- 22,795
I would like to point out some ERRORS regarding the Amiga 1000 as stated above. I know, I still have mine which works.... well, last time I took it out of the box.
The Amiga 1000 did 640x200 (NTSC) in 16 desktop colors, but could also so 32 and 64 colors at the same time. The Amiga could do 640x400 as well... Amigas with more video memory could do HAM 4096 color modes in higher res. With aftermarket Flicker-Fixer, you can get non-interlace high-res which looked sweet. A reason I bought the A3000 was because this was built in. The Amiga ran at 7.14mhz (Mega) rather than 8 like the Mac and Atari was to allow the Amiga to video sync properly to NTSC video and video hardware... hence the Amiga brought about home-video effects with genlocks (I still have mine). (The MAC II in 1997 was $5000 with color card and 20MB HD)
The Amiga 1000 sold out. Commodore was STUPID and spent too much time developing the Amiga 2000 with is STUPID PC-SLOTS. Yep, there was a time you couldn't buy an Amiga because of this stupidity. The A500 & 2000 ship in 1987, rather than 1986. Had they not bothered with the IBM PC slots, the A2000 would have been a lot smaller and maybe $200 cheaper. It had 9 slots total.
They should have made something like an Amiga 1200 for about $800... so it would have been a serious lower-cost computer... vs the $600 toy-like A500.
The Amiga 3000 was a very well made machine, close to the design of the A1000 in looks. A few years later, MS-DOS PCs where everywhere and they were cheaper... games were starting to be ported... even thou you needed to spend $200~400 for a VGA card. By 1994 or so with the release of the A600 and A1200 - it was easy to see that Commodore was totally stupid and quickly becoming out-dated and worse... more expensive than the MS-DOS clones.
Here is what you could buy in 1994 at an Amiga store:
A500 - ADOS 1.3 ($300) - for 100% game compatibility
A2000/2500 - ADOS 1.3 or 2.0 ($600~1200) - for 100% game compatibility & Video Toaster + other hardware.
A3000 ($800~1000 - discontinued) ADOS 2.0 - ECS chipset.
A600 - ADOS 2.1 ($400) - its like a mini A500 - ECS chipset. - room for internal 2.5" HD
A1200 ADOS 3.0 ($600) AGA chipset (256,000 colors) - room for internal 2.5" HD
A4000 ADOS 3.0 ($1200+) While the A3000 could do 800x600p, the A4000/1200 did 800x600i... WTF!
See the mess? OS fragmentation on the hardware level. Selling 1987 tech in 1992~93.
They were priced less than Macintosh, but more expensive than PC-Clones. Windows 3.0 was causing a huge boom to MS-DOS PC Sales. note: Windows 3.0 is NOT an Operating System. Yes, the writing was on the wall in 1994. I bought my A3000 in 1992, rather than the A1200 or 4000... it would last me for years until I went PC in 1996.... last time I used my A3000 on a regular basis was 1998.
In my personal collection:
Commodore 128 (two of them) + 1571 Floppy drive ($280)
Commodore +4 (dead)
Amiga 1000 (two of them)
Amiga 3000
Mac Classic (Given to me - works, 100x louder than my PC)
Mac II LE (Given to me)
I keep the last two or so Windows PCs (I sell off old hardware or give it away). I have a few pieces of old tech like an Voodoo3 card, a 486 mobo & CPU. The rest is gone, including my ZIP drives.
My current and last MS-Windows computer is an i5-3570K / 16GB RAM / intel SSD, Win7Pro etc.
In 20 years... our computers will be alien to us as a modern smartphone would be to someone in 1993.
er... NO!
The Amiga 1000 did 640x200 (NTSC) in 16 desktop colors, but could also so 32 and 64 colors at the same time. The Amiga could do 640x400 as well... Amigas with more video memory could do HAM 4096 color modes in higher res. With aftermarket Flicker-Fixer, you can get non-interlace high-res which looked sweet. A reason I bought the A3000 was because this was built in. The Amiga ran at 7.14mhz (Mega) rather than 8 like the Mac and Atari was to allow the Amiga to video sync properly to NTSC video and video hardware... hence the Amiga brought about home-video effects with genlocks (I still have mine). (The MAC II in 1997 was $5000 with color card and 20MB HD)
The Amiga 1000 sold out. Commodore was STUPID and spent too much time developing the Amiga 2000 with is STUPID PC-SLOTS. Yep, there was a time you couldn't buy an Amiga because of this stupidity. The A500 & 2000 ship in 1987, rather than 1986. Had they not bothered with the IBM PC slots, the A2000 would have been a lot smaller and maybe $200 cheaper. It had 9 slots total.
They should have made something like an Amiga 1200 for about $800... so it would have been a serious lower-cost computer... vs the $600 toy-like A500.
The Amiga 3000 was a very well made machine, close to the design of the A1000 in looks. A few years later, MS-DOS PCs where everywhere and they were cheaper... games were starting to be ported... even thou you needed to spend $200~400 for a VGA card. By 1994 or so with the release of the A600 and A1200 - it was easy to see that Commodore was totally stupid and quickly becoming out-dated and worse... more expensive than the MS-DOS clones.
Here is what you could buy in 1994 at an Amiga store:
A500 - ADOS 1.3 ($300) - for 100% game compatibility
A2000/2500 - ADOS 1.3 or 2.0 ($600~1200) - for 100% game compatibility & Video Toaster + other hardware.
A3000 ($800~1000 - discontinued) ADOS 2.0 - ECS chipset.
A600 - ADOS 2.1 ($400) - its like a mini A500 - ECS chipset. - room for internal 2.5" HD
A1200 ADOS 3.0 ($600) AGA chipset (256,000 colors) - room for internal 2.5" HD
A4000 ADOS 3.0 ($1200+) While the A3000 could do 800x600p, the A4000/1200 did 800x600i... WTF!
See the mess? OS fragmentation on the hardware level. Selling 1987 tech in 1992~93.
They were priced less than Macintosh, but more expensive than PC-Clones. Windows 3.0 was causing a huge boom to MS-DOS PC Sales. note: Windows 3.0 is NOT an Operating System. Yes, the writing was on the wall in 1994. I bought my A3000 in 1992, rather than the A1200 or 4000... it would last me for years until I went PC in 1996.... last time I used my A3000 on a regular basis was 1998.
In my personal collection:
Commodore 128 (two of them) + 1571 Floppy drive ($280)
Commodore +4 (dead)
Amiga 1000 (two of them)
Amiga 3000
Mac Classic (Given to me - works, 100x louder than my PC)
Mac II LE (Given to me)
I keep the last two or so Windows PCs (I sell off old hardware or give it away). I have a few pieces of old tech like an Voodoo3 card, a 486 mobo & CPU. The rest is gone, including my ZIP drives.
My current and last MS-Windows computer is an i5-3570K / 16GB RAM / intel SSD, Win7Pro etc.
In 20 years... our computers will be alien to us as a modern smartphone would be to someone in 1993.
belardo
Splendid
- Nov 23, 2008
- 3,540
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- 22,795
[citation][nom]Darkk[/nom] I would have kept using the Amiga 500 if it weren't for the annoying screen flicker compared to the rock solid screen of the IBM's VGA video adapter.Just like the Apple's the hardware for the Commodore computers were very expensive. I mean $400 for a disk drive??? And it only stored 170K per side!! Great memories!![/citation] Yep, the flickering caused the Amiga to be be taken seriously for business. It was resolved with the A3000. Instead of the stupid IBM ISA slots, the A2000 should have had a flicker-fixer built IN! With my A1000, I added one for $80 or so. IT was soo great back then!
Its like going from SD to HDTV. Back in the 80s, Commodore hardware was far cheaper than Apple or PC Clone. In 1983 - the Apple II was a $1200 computer vs the $500 C=64. By the time the C=128 came out in 1985 (it was $400) the C=64 was down to $250 or so. I paid $280 for the 360k 1571 drive - I bought it with my own money working at $3.25 an hour in 1986.
The floppy drives I bought for my Amiga were about $120 each. I still have my 2MB Amiga memory expander (external)... it was $800 0MB when it was new. I think I paid $100 for it used.
Its like going from SD to HDTV. Back in the 80s, Commodore hardware was far cheaper than Apple or PC Clone. In 1983 - the Apple II was a $1200 computer vs the $500 C=64. By the time the C=128 came out in 1985 (it was $400) the C=64 was down to $250 or so. I paid $280 for the 360k 1571 drive - I bought it with my own money working at $3.25 an hour in 1986.
The floppy drives I bought for my Amiga were about $120 each. I still have my 2MB Amiga memory expander (external)... it was $800 0MB when it was new. I think I paid $100 for it used.
jj463rd
Distinguished
- Apr 9, 2008
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I would put a HP-65 Programmable calculator in there.Why? They were far more practical (and very easy to program) than the early personal microcomputers which many of them came out later like the Altair and they had a fairly large following (users group) with thousands of people writing programs for it (The later HP 67/97 could run HP-65 Programs).Likewise the later HP-41C would run HP-67 programs too.It was also a backup for the Apollo Guidance Computer (Apollo-Soyuz)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-65
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-65
[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Imagine what would have happened if Steve Jobs never saw the GUI computer at Xerox? The Amiga computer was in development before the Mac was released to the public. It's still amazing that the apple II sold as well as it did considering the C=64 was so much cheaper yet better.[/citation]
The C-64 really wasn't better. You couldn't add anything to it, where the Apple ][ had 7 expansion slots. The 1541 floppy drive on the Commodore was atrocious, and really expensive. At 2 floppy drives the Commodore lost its price advantage. Adding ram was easy on the Apple, not possible on the Commodore. Applied Engineering had very nice accelerator cards for the Apple. Nothing for Commodore.
The Commodore wasn't horrible or anything. But it wasn't near as good, as was reflected in the price.
The C-64 really wasn't better. You couldn't add anything to it, where the Apple ][ had 7 expansion slots. The 1541 floppy drive on the Commodore was atrocious, and really expensive. At 2 floppy drives the Commodore lost its price advantage. Adding ram was easy on the Apple, not possible on the Commodore. Applied Engineering had very nice accelerator cards for the Apple. Nothing for Commodore.
The Commodore wasn't horrible or anything. But it wasn't near as good, as was reflected in the price.
The Atari 600XL (16KB) and later the 800XL (64KB) addressed many of the shortcomings of the old 400 and produced some of the most amazing games of the 80's including Rescue on Fractalus, Ball Blazer and F-15 Strike Eagle, not to mention full-featured spreadsheets and word processors. They also supported 5 1/4 inch floppy drives, dotmatrix printers and even 4 colour line plotters, which were all connected simply by daisy-chaining one to the other. In hindsight though, man was it pricey.
Oscarcharliezulu
Distinguished
- Sep 30, 2010
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The Altair was named by the daughter of the guy who designed the machine after a scene in an episode of Star Trek.
Wisecracker
Splendid
- Jan 15, 2007
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Nova: Ancient Computer
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/ancient-computer.html
The likely culprit was Archimedes ... in 200-300 BC
(making it over 2,200 years old for the math-challenged)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/ancient-computer.html
The likely culprit was Archimedes ... in 200-300 BC
(making it over 2,200 years old for the math-challenged)
NinjaNerd56
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- Apr 6, 2013
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Uhhh....NeXT?
No floppy, magneto-optical drive, WSYIWG display (Display Postscript), on-board Motorola DSP, and the OS that became what is now OS/X.
Steve saw the MO drive at Canon and asked the engineer about the controller...which was about the size of a file cabinet. That became an ASIC on the NeXT motherboard.
No floppy, magneto-optical drive, WSYIWG display (Display Postscript), on-board Motorola DSP, and the OS that became what is now OS/X.
Steve saw the MO drive at Canon and asked the engineer about the controller...which was about the size of a file cabinet. That became an ASIC on the NeXT motherboard.
One computer I would have mentioned was the Apple Duo. It was a laptop that plugged into a dock and became a desktop computer. Pretty revolutionary in its day.
Another is the Timex Sinclair 1000, which I believe sold under another name elsewhere.
Then, there was the PowerComputing and other Mac clones. That was a big deal when that all went down.
And what about the Univac? TRS-80?
Another is the Timex Sinclair 1000, which I believe sold under another name elsewhere.
Then, there was the PowerComputing and other Mac clones. That was a big deal when that all went down.
And what about the Univac? TRS-80?
lockhrt999
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- Apr 15, 2010
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@Matthieu Lamelot: Thank you very much for this superb info. Some models really amazed me.
People will keep bi*ching around but don't let it stop you from this good work.
People will keep bi*ching around but don't let it stop you from this good work.
strangewalker
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- Apr 6, 2013
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Well I'm a Brit and thus biased, but you didn't include the Sinclair ZX81 - Britain's equivalent of the Altair, I guess - although there is mention of its successor, the ZX Spectrum. The Amstrad was popular as a business machine but it was thw Spectrum that was a massive hit as a home gaming machine - less geeks than the C64 or the BBC Micro.
... And that leads on to the Acorn BBC Micro, which was hugely popular in the UK, which in turn leads to the subtle but in the end massively influential Acorn Archimedes, which was well ahead of its time in the early 1990s and included the first ARM chips, which of course are massively important today.
... And that leads on to the Acorn BBC Micro, which was hugely popular in the UK, which in turn leads to the subtle but in the end massively influential Acorn Archimedes, which was well ahead of its time in the early 1990s and included the first ARM chips, which of course are massively important today.
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