The 25 Most Important PCs in History

[Belial6]

If your willing to use the standards of the 8-bit era, there are dramatically MORE choices today than there ever were.  If you are comparing the computers to top of the line PCs, no.  The x86 PC has vastly outpaced everything else out there, but if you are willing to hack on a screen yourself, and put together your own keyboard, you have a huge choice.

Heck Microchip technology is actively selling a couple of hundred different models alone, ranging from 8-bit to 32-bit.

[JimS]

Ah, the good old days. When you were convinced that one day everyone would have a computer, but you weren't too sure what they'd be using them for.
And while you quietly advocating their purchase you had to explain to your
Uncle Ned that balancing his checkbook was probably not a good reason to buy one.

Back then I was in the mainframe biz. When the boss heard I was looking for a computer, he thought I was nuts... "You work computers all day, then you want to go home to one?", He says. "But it's *mine*", sez I. ;-)

[Iggy]

Back then I was in the mainframe biz. When the boss heard I was looking for a computer, he thought I was nuts... "You work computers all day, then you want to go home to one?", He says. "But it's *mine*", sez I. ;-)

I don't think IBM ever really understood the idea of personal computing either. Why else would they totally out source all the elements their original PC?

[Kesa]

It was a time when all the high street shops were packed out on a Saturday morning with all these spotty faced kids & teenagers that you met each week who spent hours droolling and arguing about which cassettes to spend all your hard earned pay or pocket money on that week and typing rude words on all the different computers that were on display, knowing that you'd never be kicked out of the shop cos the manager knew that eventually you'd soon part with your cash for all the latest games and then bugger off...

Course it was from these Saturday morning meetings in the high street shops or the specialised shops hidden down dark dingy lanes were you had to dodge the old tramps sleeping & puking in the doorways where lots of the user groups and cracking crews started. Don't really see or hear much of that these days in the likes of PCWorld or your local toffee nosed Mac dealers...

Twas indeed a wonderful time to be a home computer user and I've still got the scars to prove it...

They have shops in Scotireland? :hammer:

[RepoOne]

There were some good points made on the last page, and I have to agree. What sort of choice is there today? Apple vs Microsoft? HP vs Dell? AMD vs Intel? It doesn't really matter; in the mainstream market, it all boils down to x86 vs x86.

There are no competing platforms on the (main) market. For a while, Apple stayed with PowerPC, but now that they switched, what's left? Sure, there's the Efika, AmigaOne, Natami, all of that stuff, but the fact is, those are products for a niche hobbyist market.

It may be somewhat defeatist, but my stance is that the processor architecture war was lost with Apple switching from PPC, and now x86 is so ingrained into everything that it will continue to remain the dominant platform forever. It's sad, too, seeing how x86 is a crappy architecture from a programmer's perspective.

RISC was neat. x86 won out simply because it had better marketing, better production yields at the right times, and an early start. Hell, it's even more obvious today that RISC was better, because x86 today is really just a horrifying convoluted CISC instruction set laid over a RISC core.

[commodorejohn]

It may be somewhat defeatist, but my stance is that the processor architecture war was lost with Apple switching from PPC, and now x86 is so ingrained into everything that it will continue to remain the dominant platform forever. It's sad, too, seeing how x86 is a crappy architecture from a programmer's perspective.

I don't think forever, but I do wonder how long it's going to take before the industry finally gets it through their heads that you can't keep updating a 32-year-old architecture by extending the register width and lumping in coprocessor functionality indefinitely. That's why I'm cautiously hopeful for the recent attempts at ARM-based netbooks - I don't even think it's the best architecture on the market, but it would be nice to see some competition.

[XDelusion]

Man...

...I miss those days of loading up Half-Life 2 off tape drive and running through it on my PET.

[Tension]

Lew Eggebrecht and his fucking PCjnr.

Pfffffft!!!

[bloodline]

I don't think forever, but I do wonder how long it's going to take before the industry finally gets it through their heads that you can't keep updating a 32-year-old architecture by extending the register width and lumping in coprocessor functionality indefinitely. That's why I'm cautiously hopeful for the recent attempts at ARM-based netbooks - I don't even think it's the best architecture on the market, but it would be nice to see some competition.

Odd statement, because AMD and Intel have proved you can keep updating a 32year old architecture and it does just fine.

Though I have to say I am also keen on the ARM (much newer architecture at 27 years old!), as my hobby board has an nice little M3 on it and my main computing device is now my iPhone :-/

[bloodline]

RISC was neat. x86 won out simply because it had better marketing, better production yields at the right times, and an early start. Hell, it's even more obvious today that RISC was better, because x86 today is really just a horrifying convoluted CISC instruction set laid over a RISC core.

Not really, like most things in computer science, pure philosophies don't work as well in the real world as Hybrid designs do! That's why all modern CPUs are Hybrid CISC/RISC and all modern operating systems use hybrid monolithic/microkernel designs.

Hybrid designs almost always win out in real world situations

[Fats]

I don't think forever, but I do wonder how long it's going to take before the industry finally gets it through their heads that you can't keep updating a 32-year-old architecture by extending the register width and lumping in coprocessor functionality indefinitely.

That's also what Intel and HP thought when they developed their Itanium 64 bit processors. Then came AMD with their 64 bit extensions to the year-old 32 bit architecture. And the rest is history...

greets,
Staf.

[Franko]

That's also what Intel and HP thought when they developed their Itanium 64 bit processors. Then came AMD with their 64 bit extensions to the year-old 32 bit architecture. And the rest is history...

greets,
Staf.

You learn something new every day...

I thought HP only ever invented Brown Sauce...

[JimS]

I don't think IBM ever really understood the idea of personal computing either. Why else would they totally out source all the elements their original PC?

Lots of the established computer companies didn't understand the home market. I think it was the head man at DEC who asked "Why would anyone want a computer in their home"? and IBM itself was reluctant to get into the computer market, thinking that there would only be a market for five computers world wide. Now, just like in Futurama, where every gizmo is a robot, every gizmo has a computer in it. ;-)

I do think IBM's outsourcing the original was a good thing... not necessarily for them, but it lead to the plethora of cheaper clones out there.

[commodorejohn]

That's also what Intel and HP thought when they developed their Itanium 64 bit processors. Then came AMD with their 64 bit extensions to the year-old 32 bit architecture. And the rest is history...

Yeah, except that the companies behind other architectures have had the good sense not to make their designs baffling and hideous to program for, which was one of the key factors that sank the Itanic.

Odd statement, because AMD and Intel have proved you can keep updating a 32year old architecture and it does just fine.

They've kept it up thus far, but it got so crufty that they had to offload it to an entire separate RISC machine all the way back in 1995. It's impressive that they've kept it competitive, but I don't think they can do that indefinitely.

[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.

[Iggy]

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.

Yes, that was my understanding as well, that it was a cost issue. But that doesn't explain IBM and Apple's strategy at the time of selling relatively low cost  PCs with lost cost components at a premium price.

I don't know what 8088s were  going for, but a $5.00 6502 in a $1000 computer? Something's wrong there.