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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."
Other than Commodore's stupidity, another one of the reasons the Amiga never took off was because of Bill Gates.
Yes, the same ol' Bill Gates of Microsoft.
As I heard the story, the Amiga was in Redmond for scrutiny; but then Bill Gates decided not to develop for it. That decision may have resulted from negotiations with Commodore, who may not have wanted to be exhorted by Microsoft. Of course, Commodore could have also made their decision because they were totally obtuse.
At any rate, *MY* view of Microsoft turned at that point. I used to admire Microsoft as an 'IBM-killer'. After that decision, I held no love for Microsoft.