The 25 Most Important PCs in History

[runequester]

No spectrum either.

Wankers

[runequester]

hah, certainly consumer choice largely ended.

It blows my mind how many computers existed in the 8 bit era, each with significant software libraries of their own. Spectrum, The commodore and atari machines, msx, amstrad cpc, bbc micro, undoubtedly more stuff I am forgetting about

Move up a bit and we are mostly down to amiga, atari, ibm-clones and mac's.

And today, you can pick between a PC running windows, a PC running mac os, and a PC running linux.

[runequester]

Yeah bring back "Incompatible", lets revel in the lack of standards.

That's when you didn't choose to be different, it was forced upon you.

Microsoft office would like to talk to you about that, but it can't because you're not running the same version.

[runequester]

Well, I wouldn't count out ARM. Basically if it isn't a console or a computer, it probably runs ARM. They pretty much rule the embedded market.

As far as IBM using off-the-shelf parts for their original PC, my understanding was always that it was a question of cost and convenience, since they wanted a product on the market quick. Once the BIOS was cloned, the rest was history.

[runequester]

A 1000 dollars would have been a bargain in the mid 80s for a PC or Mac

In the end, they charged what they thought people were willing to pay. And people were indeed willing to pay 1500 dollars for a computer that at the time was barely more capable than most 8 bits

[runequester]

Yeah, prices have finally become sane.