Top 20 computer systems in the World
Xerox Star
This is the system that launched a thousand innovations in 1981. The work of some of the best people at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) went into it. Several of these - the mouse and a desktop GUI with icons - showed up two years later in Apple`s Lisa and Macintosh computers. The Star wasn’t what you would call a commercial success, however. The main problem seemed to be how much it cost. It would be nice to believe that someone shifted a decimal point somewhere: The pricing started at $50,000.
IBM PCIrony of ironies that someone at mainframe-centric IBM recognized the business potential in personal computers. The result was in 1981 landmark announcement of the IBM PC. Thanks to an open architecture, IBM’s clout, and Lotus 1-2-3 (announced one year later), the PC and its progeny made business micros legitimate and transformed the personal computer world.
The PC used Intel`s 16-bit 8088, and for $3000, it came with 64 KB of RAM and a 51/4-inch floppy drive. The printer adapter and monochrome monitor were extras, as was the color graphics adapter.
Compaq Portable
Compaq’s Portable almost single-handedly created the PC clone market. Although that was about all you could do with it single-handedly - it weighed a ton. Columbia Data Products just preceded Compaq that year with the first true IBM PC clone but didn’t survive. It was Compaq’s quickly gained reputation for engineering and quality, and its essentially 100 percent IBM compatibility (reverse-engineering, of course), that legitimized the clone market. But was it really designed on a napkin?
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
Years before PC-compatible subnotebook computers, Radio Shack came out with a book-size portable with a combination of features, battery life, weight, and price that is still unbeatable. (Of course, the Z80-based Model 100 didn’t have to run Windows.)
The $800 Model 100 had only an 8-row by 40-column reflective LCD (large at the time) but supplied ROM-based applications (including text editor, communications program, and BASIC interpreter), a built-in modem, I/O ports, nonvolatile RAM, and a great keyboard. Wieghing under 4 pounds, and with a battery life measured in weeks (on four AA batteries), the Model 100 quickly became the first popular laptop, especially among journalists.
With its battery-backed RAM, the Model 100 was always in standby mode, ready to take notes, write a report, or go on-line. NEC`s PC 8201 was essentially the same Kyocera-manufectured system.
Apple Macintosh
Whether you saw it as a seductive invitation to personal computing or a cop-out to wimps who were afraid of a command line, Apple`s Macintosh and its GUI generated even more excitement than the IBM PC. Apple`s R&D people were inspired by critical ideas from Xerox PARK (and practiced on Apple`s Lisa) but added many of their own ideas to create a polished product that changed the way people use computers.
The original Macintosh used Motorola’s 16-bit 68000 microprocessor. At $2495, the system offered a built-in-high-resolution monochrome display, the Mac OS, and a single-button mouse. With only 128 KB of RAM, the Mac was underpowered at first. But Apple included some key applications that made the Macintosh immediately useful. (It was MacPaint that finally showed people what a mouse is good for.)
IBM AT
George Orwell didn’t foresee the AT in 1984. Maybe it was because Big Blue, not Big Brother, was playing its cards close to its chest. The IBM AT set new standards for performance and storage capacity. Intel`s blazingly fast 286 CPU running at 6 MHz and 16-bit bus structure gave the AT several times the performance of previous IBM systems. Hard drive capacity doubled from 10 MB to 20 MB (41 MB if you installed two drives - just donut ask how they did the math), and the cost per megabyte dropped dramatically.
New 16-bit expansion slots meant new (and faster) expansion cards but maintained downward compatibility with old 8-bit cards. These hardware changes and new high-density 1.2-MB floppy drives meant a new version of PC-DOS (the dreaded 3.0).
The price for an AT with 512 KB of RAM, a serial/parallel adapter, a high-density floppy drive, and a 20-MB hard drive was well over $5000 - but much less than what the pundits expected.
Commondore Amiga 1000
The Amiga introduced the world to multimedia. Although it cost only $1200, the 68000-based Amiga 1000 did graphics, sound, and video well enough that many broadcast professionals adopted it for special effects. Its sophisticated multimedia hardware design was complex for a personal computer, as was its multitasking, windowing OS.
Compaq Deskrpo 386