Top 10 Personal Computers, Revised

rebelcool writes "Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle has revised his Top 10 PCs of all time, mainly as a result of this Slashdot story. He addresses many of the replies written to him wondering why X system wasn't on the list in Y position, but also chose to replace the Apple Newton with the Amiga A1000."

Comments

What? How could he forget

[Wigfield]

AOL's $299 PC?

The bigot!

Classic Computers

[xeno_gearz]

The Commodore 64 was fantastic when I first ran across it. It was the first computer that I recall any of my friends having. Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't think of buying a computer at the time (and I couldn't afford one being somewhere about 10 and all). I often would go to a friend's house and play on his family's computer and play games like Zork.

Unfortunately, it never went much further than that. However, the inclusion of the Apple Macintosh in our school computer labs was a huge influence as that is when I first recall seeing a GUI like that.

For those reasons, those computers will always remain classics for me and are definitely part of my top ten.

Powerful Slashdot

[penguinoid]

Goes to show that united geeks carry weight.

Re:where did he get the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

umm.. maybe he read slashdot one day.

Macintosh?

[Isopropyl]

Mr. Silverman seems very obliging, revising his original list to conform to certain external demands. The one question I have is why he didn't acknowledge his own poll (the one on the original top 10 page)? The largest number (34%) cleary chose the Apple Macintosh over every other computer, with a couple recieve close to no votes at all (0-1%)! I don't use a Macintosh, but if so many people feel that way, shouldn't Mr. Silverman think about it?

Lets slashdot him again...

[CrackedButter]

...just to make sure he never makes the same mistake again, that'll teach him!

iMac

[quantaman]

I'm not sure on what basis top 10 were chosen but I feel the iMac should be a definate candidate. Not only did it revitalize a company struggling at the time (Apple) but it's the first computer I can think of that was considered by the general public to be cool looking and since the iMac showed it could be done computers have really become alot more stylish in appearance (whether for good or evil). I feel that for its popularity and effect on the modern computer industry the iMac deserves a spot.

Re:iMac

[sugar and acid]

Except one thing, iMacs broke the beige barrier.

Before iMac the colour choice for your computer was along the line of, beige, off white or ivory (ie all shades of beige). iMac comes along, and all of a sudden you can buy a personal computer that isn't beige. All major PC manufactures have almost stop making beige computers (though now the new beige is black).

The iMac showed people wanted good looking computers on there desk, and for many people the computer is just like a couch or a table or even a toaster, where the purchase decision is based on both practicality and asthetics.

Apple newton

[nuggz]

I don't like apple in general.
I find their computers annoying, and hard to use, mostly unfamiliarity, and that the UI isn't very intuitive to me.

But I really disagree with removing the Newton, that was an amazing piece of hardware, the first time I saw it, I was blown away, and it was already a few years old by then.
I saw it, played with it, and thought "this is where computers are going for the public".

I really think it was a landmark in computer history, it was just too recent for people to note the effect.

Amiga Placement

[retsamxaw]

Although everyone can't ever be 100% satisfied with their own list - much less someone else's, it's good to see the Amiga got its appropriate level of respect.

Much more than Mac zealots, Amiga users have continued to utilize their 10-15 year old Amigas for things that matter in our modern world.

Sure, you can play text based games, use ssh/telnet, and "word process" on nearly any PC in existance, but old Amigas can (and still are) utilized for video work.

While I think the Newton deserved a spot in the historical review, the Amiga is truly - like the Mac - one of the forebearers of our modern Gnome, KDE, Mac OS X, and WinXP computing environments:

• pre-emptive multitasking
• CLI/GUI mix
• true-color graphics
• stereo sound
• co-processing
• animation

  The Amiga was the more deserving of the two.

  I think that's a very "fair and balanced" list (I'd take off the Tandy and replace it with the Newton or the original Graffiti Palm). The reason Amiga zealots persist is only due to it not receiving its historical recognition. This article will go along way to making them feel validated. I feel that Mac OS X shares much in spirit with the original Amiga, and I have long since switched to the new keeper of the flame - on the desktop. Linux and FreeBSD will (forever?) remain the server favorites.

Re:What? How could he forget

[rock_climbing_guy]

No, this is AOL's PC.