1980
My first Computer the ZX80 from Sinclair. Not really a super computer but it was latest tec of the day for the common man.
You provided your own screeen which was a TV (on old black and white portable)
You provided your own storage system a cassette recorder and tapes
No software as such.. You programmed it yourself.Probably akin to today's raspberry pi but without the computing power.
I still have it.. shown in the last photo
The specs were...
Type Home computer
Release date 1980; 38 years ago
Introductory price £99.95 (£393; $531 at 2018 prices)
Discontinued 1981
Units shipped 100,000[1]
Media Cassette tape
Operating system Sinclair BASIC
CPU Z80 @ 3.25 MHz (most machines used the NEC μPD780C-1 equivalent)
Memory 1 KB (16 KB max.)
Successor ZX81
1983
Next came the Vic 20
A major upgrade from the ZX80 and ZX81
Still needing a tv as a screen and a cassette recorder (provided) this one came with a cart slot and function keys. And even better, some games
The Specs
Developer Jack Tramiel
Manufacturer Commodore
Product family micro computers
Type Home computer
Release date 1980 (VIC-1001) / 1981
Retail availability 5 years
Introductory price US$299.95 (equivalent to $760.63 in 2017)
Discontinued January 1985; 33 years ago
Operating system Commodore KERNAL/
Commodore BASIC 2.0
CPU MOS Technology 6502 @ 1.108404 MHz (PAL) [1] @ 1.02 MHz (NTSC)
Memory 20 KB ROM + 5 KB RAM (expandable to 32 KB), 3.5 KB for BASIC (expandable to 27.5 KB)
Storage Cassette tapes and floppy disks
Display Commodore 1701
Graphics VIC 176 x 184 3-bpp
Sound 3 × square, 1 × noise, mono.[2]
Input tape and floppy disks and cartridge
Predecessor Commodore PET
Successor Commodore 64
1985
Now for the good stuff. This was a great bit of kit with lots of addons
You got the basic pc with keyboard. You could add lots of goodies..
Monitor added
Five and a quarter Floppy added
You could still use the cassette recorder
Teletext adapter added.. This was pretty cool as you could read, download and use loaded software strait from teletext This was way ahead of its time. You could download programs from the open uni via a flashing light on your tv strait to your computer.
You could burn and use eproms and you could network these computers together
I ended up with 2 of these plus an acorn electron pc
Specs
BBC Micro Model A/B (standard configuration)
Developer Acorn Computers
Type 8-bit home computer
Release date 1 December 1981; 36 years ago
Retail availability 1981-1994
Introductory price £235 Model A, £335 Model B (in 1981)
Discontinued 1994; 24 years ago
Units sold Over 1.5 million
Media Cassette tape, floppy disk (optional) – 5.25″ (common) (SS/SD, SS/DD, DS/SD, DS/DD), 3.5″ (rare) (SS/DD, DS/DD), hard disk also known as 'Winchester' (rare), Laserdisc (BBC Domesday Project)
Operating system Acorn MOS
CPU 2 MHz MOS Technology 6502/6512
Memory
16–32 KiB (Model A/B)
64–128 KiB (Model B+)
128 KiB (Master)
Plus 32–128 KB ROM, expandable to 272 KiB
Storage
100–800 KB (DFS)
160–1280 KB (ADFS floppy disks)
20 MB (ADFS hard disk)
Display PAL/NTSC, UHF/composite/TTL RGB
Graphics
640×256, 8 colours (various framebuffer modes)
78×75, 8 colours (Teletext)
Sound Texas Instruments SN76489, 4 channels, mono
TMS5220 speech synthesiser with phrase ROM (optional)
Input Keyboard, twin analogue joysticks with fire buttons, lightpen
Connectivity Printer parallel, RS-423 serial, user parallel, Econet (optional), 1 MHz bus, Tube second processor interface
Power 50 W
Predecessor Acorn Atom
Successor Acorn Archimedes
Related articles
1989
I progressed to the modern day PC and never looked back
My first PC had a 40mb hard drive and a tiny amount of ram
We've come along way in 38 years and it makes you wonder where we'll be in another 38
Don't think I'll be around to see that though
Specs and Photo's from wikipedia
