Retro Computers

Once upon a time there lived an old computer..........

The Sinclair ZX80 was a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Sinclair Research of Cambridge, England. It was notable for being the first computer available in the United Kingdom for under a hundred pounds (a price tag of £99.95, to be exact). It was available in kit form, where purchasers had to assemble and solder it together, and as a ready-built version at a slightly higher cost for those without the skill or inclination to build their own unit. The ZX80 was very popular straight away, and for some time there was a waiting list of several months for either version of the machine.

The Sinclair ZX81 home computer, released by Sinclair Research in 1981, was the follow up to the company's ZX80. The case was black, with a membrane keyboard; the machine's distinctive appearance was the work of industrial designer Rick Dickinson. Video output, as in the ZX80, was to a television set, and saving and loading programs was via an ordinary home audio tape recorder to audio cassette. Timex Corporation manufactured kits as well as assembled machines for Sinclair Research. In the United States a version with double the RAM and an NTSC television standard was marketed as the "Timex Sinclair 1000".

The BBC Microcomputer System was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers Ltd for the BBC Computer Literacy Project operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. By virtue of the Literacy Project the series became a cornerstone of computing in British education in the 1980s, changing the fortunes of Acorn. It was also directly involved in the development of the ARM architecture which sees widespread use in embedded systems as of 2007.

While twelve models were eventually produced in the range, the term BBC Micro is often colloquially used to refer to the first four (Model A, B, B+64 and B+128), with the later eight models referred to by the BBC Master and Archimedes names.

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Originally dubbed the ZX81 Colour and ZX82,[1][2] the machine was later renamed the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared to the black-and-white of its predecessor, the Sinclair ZX81.[3]. It is affectionately known as the Speccy by some of its fans.[4]

The Spectrum was among the first mainstream audience home computers in the UK, similar in significance to the Commodore 64 in the USA; the C64 was the main rival to the Spectrum in the UK market during the early 1980s. The introduction of the ZX Spectrum led to a boom of companies producing software and hardware for it. The effects of this are still seen.[5]

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer released by Commodore International in August, 1982, at a price of US$595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes (64×210 bytes) of RAM with sound and graphics performance that were superior to IBM-compatible computers of that time.

The Commodore 64 is commonly referred to as the C64 (sometimes written C= 64 to mimic the Commodore company logo) and occasionally known as CBM 64 (Commodore Business Machines Model number 64), or VIC-64[1]. It has also been affectionately nicknamed the "breadbox" and "bullnose" due to its shape.

During the Commodore 64's lifetime (between 1982 and 1994), sales totalled around 30 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.[2] Sam Tramiel, a former Commodore president said in a 1989 interview "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years." [3]At one point (1983/84/85), the Commodore 64 dominated the market with approximately 40% share, even outselling IBM PCs and Apple computers. [4][5] Part of its success was due to the fact that it was sold in retail stores instead of electronics stores, and that Commodore produced many of its parts in-house to control supplies and cost.

Approximately 10,000 commercial software titles were made for the Commodore 64[citation needed] including development tools, office applications, and games. The machine is also credited with popularizing the computer demo scene. The Commodore 64 is still used today by some computer hobbyists[6], and various C64 emulators allow anyone with a modern computer to run these programs on their desktop.

The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured by Atari, starting in 1979. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips. Over the following decade several versions of the same basic design were released, including the original Atari 400 and 800 and their successors, the XL and XE series of computers.

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corp. in 1985. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two",[1] which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals.

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International introduced the machine to the market in 1985, after having bought Amiga Corporation. The name Amiga was selected by the developers specifically from the Spanish word for a female friend,[1] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.[2]

Based on the Motorola 68k series of microprocessors, the machine sported a custom chipset with advanced graphics and sound capabilities, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system (now known as AmigaOS). While the M68k was a 32-bit processor, the version originally used in the Amiga had a 16-bit external data bus, and the machine (along with its contemporary, the Atari Sixteen-Thirtytwo (ST)) was generally referred to in the press as a 16-bit computer.[citation needed] Later models sported fully 32-bit designs based on 68020, 68030, 68040, or PowerPC processors. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64, and the Amiga quickly grew in popularity among computer enthusiasts, especially in Europe, and sold approximately 6 million units.[3][4]

It also found a prominent role in the video production and show control business, and was a less-expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh and IBM-PC. The Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer, although early Commodore advertisements attempted to place the Amiga into several different markets at the same time.[5][6]

Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line. As of 2007, Eyetech sells Amiga hardware under the AmigaOne brand.