I love the 80s (computers)

[TheGoose]

Cnet TV
Top 5 80's Computers

http://cnettv.cnet.com/1980s-computers/9742-1_53-50081092.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.1

[DrValkyer]

What? No PC??

PC is not my favourite but I guess it should be on this list.

[dannyp1]

I think that is a pretty honest list.  This guy obviously lived the 80's and had a pretty good feel for what was going on.

[beller]

What? No PC??

PC is not my favourite but I guess it should be on this list.

Given the computers listed, I don't think the PC fits.  During the 80s the PC was out of range for most consumers and was used mostly in business.  CNET is a consumer oriented site and the 5 listed were the computers that found their way into homes.  

Commodore has 2 of the 5!  Surprised no one else caught that...long live the 64!


Bob (who also lived through it)

[AeroMan]

Given the computers listed, I don't think the PC fits.  During the 80s the PC was out of range for most consumers and was used mostly in business.  CNET is a consumer oriented site and the 5 listed were the computers that found their way into homes.  

Commodore has 2 of the 5!  Surprised no one else caught that...long live the 64!


Bob (who also lived through it)

First PCs were crappy also... almost every 8 bit machine had better sound and graphics.
Nice list, but I would change the TRS80 and put the Speccy instead. You can't deny it's importance

[darkage]

First PCs were crappy also... almost every 8 bit machine had better sound and graphics.
Nice list, but I would change the TRS80 and put the Speccy instead. You can't deny it's importance

haha I remember the school yard fights,  Amiga vs PC!   The PC kids would always lose out on arguments against the Amiga!!   Cool!

[Hell Labs]

haha I remember the school yard fights,  Amiga vs PC!   The PC kids would always lose out on arguments against the Amiga!!   Cool!

I hope you guys pointed out the workbench and not just games...

[persia]

I don't get the trash 80, is that because CNet is American?  There were far more  Ataris than Trash 80's here in Australia.  I don't even remember there being Tandy stores in the country back then, but maybe I'm wrong. I do remember the company that took them over, Dick Smith, having a store nearby, but I don't think they sold Tandy stuff back then...

[TheGoose]

Yeah, remember this is a popularity contest (among geeks or the OGs ) not really about the merits, clearly. Other wise you would just flip the list and then it makes perfect sense.

Also true to American nature, we pick the shittiest of technologies to pursue ( VHS, PC, NTSC, our cars in general, ect...)

[Sig999]

Technically the TRS80 and the Apple II were 70's computers. I remember being rather amazed that some people were using the TRS 80 in 1984, and were quite zealous about it (we don't need your fangles color and sprites! blast your c64 I'll use this forever! - sound familiar?).

I'm surprised to see the Classic Mac not on the list - a much better representation of Apple in the 80s.

Of course it being the US the Spectrum didn't make it on the list either.

[save2600]

"16 Million colors in 1985"... lol

[ck1200]

First PCs were crappy also... almost every 8 bit machine had better sound and graphics.
Nice list, but I would change the TRS80 and put the Speccy instead. You can't deny it's importance

I thought it was a fair list but i would of put the spectrum in place of the trs80 and suprised the 500 was pictured in 05th place

[RobertB]

Commodore has 2 of the 5!  Surprised no one else caught that...long live the 64!

Already caught it, Bob.  And the news has been spread to the Commodore forums, mailing lists, newsgroups, and websites.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

[klx300r]

YES..my kind of guy! C64 number 1 and no mention of Atari :-)

[Lurch]

I agree with the C64 being the top personal computer of the time.. well the C64C was the best edition. The Amiga should be bumped up to 3rd or even 2nd being the killer machine of that decade and some of the 90's. Not sure why Atari wasn't mentioned, especially the Atari 520/1024ST which seemed to be as common as Amiga 500's (Well in New Zealand anyway) I hated the Atari ad's of the day with colours being thrown around bah. TRS stuff... thought that was more 70's didnt see any of those around in the mid 80's from what I can remember, especially not in the local computer geek crowd. If you didnt have a C64 or an Amiga 500 it was a hard push finding hardware/software.
Also surprised that the Spectrum wasn't in there, I'm also a fan of the Amstrad CPC464, CPC664, CPC6128 range.. especially the CPC6128... I remember playing Sabateur a lot, Farmers use to sell them (Farmers is a local retail outlet here in New Zealand):-)

PC's... which should really be called IBM clones.. as PC means personal computer which all the above are but thats a different topic. back in the 80's didnt mean much, especially when you had to pay so much more for less features and slower machines. I didn't bother with them until I made the mistake of purchasing a 486sx25 (with a sound blaster pro woohoo).

Anyway now we're stuck with x86 machines, fingers crossed for the AmigaOne X1000 :-)