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Top 10 Personal Computers
BWJones writes "The Houston Chronicle has posted a story by Dwight Silverman on the ten most popular PC's of all time. His inclusions are for the most part accurate, but his rankings confuse me. For instance, he includes 'hobby' computers such as the Altair, but excludes the Apple I and his ranking of the Compaq portable PC at number one ahead of the Altair, Apple I and II, Apple Lisa and Macintosh. Interestingly, the author also skips other significant platforms entirely, such as the Amiga and Atari computers as well as skipping over the much more significant Tandy products, the TRS-80 line of computers which like the Apple I and II had built in BASIC which helped introduce many people to programming."
Definitely missing the Amiga on that list. Chuck the "APPLE NEWTON MESSAGE PAD".
IMHO
Belief is the currency of delusion.
and the Xbox, PS2, and Sega Dreamcast running Linux?
Yes the Amiga should be on that list, the others, I don't really agree with.
But you might be forgetting is this is someones list. It isn't the end all and be all of lists, go ahead make your own, write an article about it.
I find it funny that so many people will get all riled up over what a single person wrote.
I still have ye'ole coco I, II, and III (all thoroughly modified of course) squirreled away along with the cassette tape "drive", etc.
No 486sux belongs on a Top 10 Computer list.
Back in the day there was this enormous variety of memorable machines (and some companies like Apple are still putting them out). However, most younger people have these fond memories of some entirely forgettable generic beige clone box. Whenever someone starts reminising about their beloved Gateway 2000, I just want to drop a nextcube on their head.
the original 128k Macintosh is not listed as #1. Don't get me wrong, it's high on the list, which is good. But this list is sort of like having a Top Ten Rock & Roll Bands List, with the Beatles beaten out by Bruce Springsteen . The original Mac was the 800lb Gorilla, who's presence is still felt today (at least in terms of every computer use by the masses). Love it or hate it, it basically defined the User Experience still in use today.
And dammit, where is my TRS-80?
In the UK, you'd have to at least consider the inclusion of the Sinclair ZX80/81 and the BBC computer from the early 80s. Both were affordable, came with BASIC built in and introduced people to the idea of having a computer in their homes - I was particularly fond of BBC basic which, like many others of my generation, gave me my first programming experience.
It should really be renamed the "the top 10 personal computers of all time in the US".
I emailed someone last night who had brought up some of the history of Apple Computer. They made the statement that the Apple //e lasted in Apple's catalog well into the late 80's.
//e (this would be early 90's).
//e was originally released in January 1983 and was finally discontinued in March of 1995!
I had to correct him - I remembered seeing seeing an Apple catalog listing both the original Powerbook Duo 210 and the Apple
As it turns out, the Apple
The computer, with only a few minor revisions, was sold for over twelve years.
In addition, I was sorry to see that the original iMac did not make the list.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
"Pathetic" is a bit over the top. Each of those machines exerted some major influence and made a mark on the industry.
The TI 99/4 was definitely saddled with a weird "expansion box" which was essentially an empty PC case designed to hold expansion cards (memory, floppy drive, etc.). However, the 99/4 became the darling of early education since it ran LOGO, a programming language that was taught to kindergarten and elementary school children. There's a generation whose first classroom PC was a TI 99/4 running LOGO. TI also spent a lot of money advertising the 99/4 (Bill Cosby was the spokesman) which raised consumer awareness of the existence of PC's for the home.
The Timex/Sinclair was a novelty but also showed the possibilies for cheap and small PC's that could be used by hobbyists on a budget. There are a lot of programmers that cut their teeth on BASIC on the Sinclair
The Adam from Coleco was nearly "pathetic" as far as a PC, but it was a pretty cool gaming console and it had great packaging. It was compatable with nothing, but Coleco bundled it with a lot of stuff. However, if I recall correctly it was a major disaster in terms of sales and took Coleco down with it.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I bet a lot of nuclear power stations were run with far more primitive computers.
>It seems to me like what this writer did was look at .
.
// and Commodore 64 are ranked 1, 2 and 3, with 35%, 24% and 21% of the vote, respectively. I think that's a very sensible ranking of the options the author gave in his top-10 list. Obviously, the Wintel PC that so dominates the market today is essentially a glorified, hopped up Mac-emulator. The interface bears zero relation to the way the PC originally worked, but any Mac user from 1984 could fire up one of today's PC's and be on their way in a matter of minutes. And yes, I know Apple stole the Mac interface from Xerox, but it's not like Xerox was going to do anything with it. They developed scads of tech they weren't able to successfully commercialize. Pity, that.
// and the C-64, the // was the first computer to sell in significant numbers, proving there was some kind of market for these costly devices, while the C-64 proved there was truly a mass-market for the personal computer - including in the home - and that entertainment applications (particularly videogames) were just as appealing on PCs as they were on dedicated consoles. The C-64 also introduced a useable PC to tens of millions of people who would have never had the opportunity to lay their hands on a pricey Apple or IBM system. I think the C-64 was a very weak sister to Atari's 8-bit computers, which were far better designed and built, but it certainly won the price and marketshare battle. You can bet a lot of folks learned something from that lesson - dominate the market first or potentially not at all
>each loose "era" of personal computing . . . He then
>included 3 or 4 PC's from each era on his list . .
I don't think it's clear WHAT criteria the author used to compile his silly list, and I think that's the #1 problem with his list. Was it sales? Well, the average Dell Latitude model today probably outsells the original Mac, because the market for personal computers is so much larger today. So sales isn't the whole story.
He says he's ranking the most "important" PCs, but I don't even remember some of those systems. The "Tandy Sensation" at #8? What the hell was *that*? A 1992 release, he claims it showed other PC makers, "how multimedia should be done", but the Mindset PC had already taken a stab at that in the PC market back around 1983. The Amiga and Atari ST were certainly showing how multimedia could work on the desktop, and had both been doing so for around 7 years at that point. And of course there were the Macs, which started shipping with CD-ROM drives as standard equipment long before PC's did. I don't think the clone market looked to Tandy's system at all as some kind of standard - I think they were all chasing the Mac. As usual. And I say this as someone who has never owned a Mac, but let's be real here - whatever Apple is doing today with their hardware and interface, you can almost bet the PC will be doing in a year. Or two. Or three . .
As for Compaq's portable being the "most important" PC ever - what a joke! It may have been the first copy of the IBM PC, but the PC would have been cloned by somebody (probably many somebodies) eventually, anyhow. It's not like nobody had heard of reverse engineering in 1983. If Compaq hadn't done it, Japan, Inc. would have. The Compaq portable is probably one of the "most important" developments in the *IBM* PC & compatible market, but from an end-user's perspective on the personal computer as a tool, it really doesn't matter anymore what brand of box you're running so long as it accomplishes the job you've set out to do. And today's personal computers pretty much all operate alike regardless of what brand is stamped on the front of the box or the chips inside. You can thank a personal computer company for that development alright, but it ain't Compaq.
The user survey accompanying the article reflects that point of view perfectly. Currently, the Mac, Apple
As for the Apple
The article lists the personal computers the writer believes are the most "important". I.e., it's his opinion.
/. has sworn off using editors, but at least the staff might try using their brains.
Our hapless submitter changed that to most "popular", which is an entirely different thing, of course. And, easily determined by looking at sales records.
I know
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