Story of a Business and an Industry

I was trying to remember the name of the excellent word processing software I used on my first desktop computer (my first computer was a pocket one), a Color Computer 2.  That led me to Google and to this brief timeline of personal computers.

I got to 1977 and was amused because that one modest entry kind of sums up the entire history and modus operandi of Apple computer (emphasis added):

Commodore introduces the PET 2001 computer, featuring a 6502 processor, 4 kB RAM, keyboard, display, and tape drive, for US$600.

Apple Computer introduces the Apple II computer, featuring a 6502 processor, 4 kB RAM, keyboard, game paddles, color graphics/text interface, for US$1300.

Radio Shack introduces the TRS-80 computer, featuring Z80 processor, 4 kB RAM, keyboard, black-and-white video display, and tape drive, for US$600.

It’s also interesting that the one I heard of first was the Radio Shack, and I always thought the Apple came out maybe a year later and then stole Radio Shack’s thunder.

This whole trying to remember and list everything I ever used, was trained on, or supported is hard.  For instance, depending how finely you divide them, there are upwards of 22 operating systems/environments, and upwards of 21 word processors or multifunction packages.  Before counting different versions, and not counting ones that were part of multifunction packages, there are at least four spreadsheet programs.  Remember what versions exactly?  Yeah, right.

1. My junior high had one of the those PETs--I learned some BASIC on it back in the day.

   A friend of mine had a CoCo as well--which at the time rocked.  Of special interest was his 300 baud modem that allowed us to check out the varios BBSes in town!

   Posted by Steven Taylor  on  03/17  at  09:48 AM  from 

2. Ah, yes! The TRS-80 (more affectionately called the ‘Trash 80’. I did some of my first programming on a TRS-80. BASIC, of course. I also got my hands on one of the TRS80 Model 100’s, one of the first truly portable computers. It saw a lot of service with my amateur radio hobby, used as a smart radio-teletype or packet radio terminal. The Co-Co’s were also great for this kind of use.

   I also had a Commodore 64 and later, a Commodore 128. (128K of memory! What would we ever use all of that RAM for?)

   Then some time around 1994 I got my first real IBM clone. Though it came with MS-DOS, I quickly dumped the OS and installed OS/2. What an awesome operating system! It’s a shame that IBM didn’t take the initiative and promote the hell out of it because if they had everyone would be saying “Windows what?” today. It was so far ahead of Windows 95. It even ran Windows 3.x and DOS programs far better than Windows did.

   Ah, the memories.....

   Posted by DCE  on  03/17  at  04:28 PM  from 
Page 1 of 1 pages

<< Back to main