What was the best 1980s computer?

[lndm]

Yes, IIRC there was a certain derision toward IBM users. Like any prejudice, it wasn't always true but generally it was thought that IBMs were either business tools or rich toys. In either case, the owner wasn't the sysad, merely a 'user'. This may have made the systems deficiencies irrelevant, and opened a market for maintenance and administration.

 

[frekk]

Absurd? I think not. I was already a hacker, then. Yes, theoretically 'everybody' had heard of Commodore. But 'everybody' thought of them primarily as game machines. Even though some of the military/government offices I worked in used them (and Ataris) as work machines (much like modern PCs). The IBM was, as you said, really aimed at the business market. But that just reaffirmed people's thinking that 'real' computers were made by IBM.

Home users/hobbyists went for the Amiga. But the trend had already started: "If I have a computer at home, I want to be able to work on it / use the same programs I'm familiar with from work / etc." Since the breadwinner controlled the purse strings, that meant he (or, occasionally she) would buy the computer he wanted, a 'real' computer, not just a 'kids toy'. And there went the home PC market....

Meh, I think it's simpler than that: cannibalism. x86s were designed for business, it was very easy to swap out and upgrade parts, and every time a new generation came out, alot of those parts (and even whole machines) ended up being tossed out or given away. Effectively this meant that machines could be built for free right out of the garbage or very cheaply from government auctions etc.

None of the commodore machines (including the amiga) were very well-suited to parts upgrading (it could be done but not to the same degree or with the same ease), and because they were not business machines, there was no abundance of obsolete parts and machines being tossed out with every generation.

The fundamental result of all this was that the x86 machines were popular with youth (who didn't, as you say, control the purse-strings and had to make do with what was cheap or available) and it was completely natural that they would become the dominant architecture as the 90s dawned.

 

[Padma]

You do make a very good point. The 'clone' ability of the x86 systems certainly helped.

 

[Zelpo]

In my neck of the woods (central CA), Apple ][e's were everywhere, with TRS80's, C64's & assorted Atari's mixed in. The schools all had the ][e's, and I was lucky enough to have one at home with two floppy drives (step father did peoples taxes during that time of the year, I gamed on it the rest).

So, to me, the ][e was the most popular in my age bracket at the time. I had a VIC20 before that, so the ][e was a big step up, especially for the game pirating that was very prolific among the youth.

Neat to see the progression through the decades.

 

[Jazzmail]

The amiga. From 1985 and still a nice machine in the early nineties.

It was not until 1989 when PCs arrived with sound blasters and VGA cards, that could offer something better than the original amiga OCS.

Even in the nineties, the amiga games usually had better music than the PC ports, because the music on the pc was usually through OPL3 instead of mods.

Maybe 386 cpus at the time didn't have enough performance to both mix digital sound channels and draw many sprites at the same time or maybe it was backwards compatibility to Adlib users, anyway it wasn't good enough yet.

I still occasionally play amiga games (through emulator now) when no game before the amiga can hold my interest. The amiga marks for me the beginning where games got really good.

 

[averagejoe]

I had a c-64 around 89-91. I remember the stores having a IBM & C-64 section. The IBM games looked much better. I bought my first real pc when Earl Waever II came out. The pc was a 286 with a 40mb hdd. yeah thats right 40mb. And memory was 640K. I upgraded to 1mb just to play a "Pro league Football." Great football for its time. Though i did like Super Sunday for c-64.