Didn't some (wealthy) people have PDP-8s in their homes before the advent of microcomputers?

The PET 2001 was the first computer in my home. I knew someone who had an Altair 8800 that he built from a kit. I also knew someone with a Compucolor II, but I never went to his place so I never actually saw that one. I'm not sure if that one came before or after the PET, but definitely it came after the Altair.

@mcbone

well done to minuous and robo-ant for getthe answer ringht

yes it was commodore pet it was in home and office be for Imb and Apple come out

and commodore also make imb call commodore pc 5 and pc 10 ...

thank for put other computer name in as i not hear of than

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maybe i am dyslexia

An Apple a day keep bill gates away

@nbache
Quote:

I'd say the Altair 8800, or maybe the Radio Shack TRS-80.

The Radio Shack Color Computer wasn't on the list either. It one of the earliest low priced "home" computers that used a TV for the monitor. It was released 2 years before the C64 and used the Motorola 6809 CPU; making it the "real" predecessor of the Amiga which used the next generation Motorola CPU (M68000). Despite the superior CPU and graphics it lost the "home computer" race because Commodore was dishonest about the accessible memory. Radio Shack did not count the OS ROM memory in their publicity but Commodore counted the ROM as part of the memory and cleverly named the computer "Commodore 64". In reality the CoCo and C64 had about the same available user memory.

EDIT: The Radio Shack Color Computer Basic operating system was written by Microsoft and far superior to early C64 operating system.

Last edited by Xenic on 04-Sep-2014 at 07:38 PM.

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X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

MSX. Then Amstrad 646 and 512 to a friend, Then came The A500;)


My Big Brother had Oric Atmos and one before, can't remember. The printer was like the receipt You get today in a shop, only silver / gray "paper". Everything had to be written for a program or a game. How old am I ? ;)

@danwood

Nah, this thread is NOT about pretending to know a lot of computer history (that, being a Spectrum user, you should have supposed I know very well). It is about to know which computer entered the first one in each one of our houses ;)

@Minuous

Quote:

Minuous wrote: The PET is the earliest machine (1977) among those you listed. There were home computers around before that, although AFAIK they were all kit machines (you had to build them yourself).

That was the case here, although I didn't get my Elf II going until spring 1978.

Got my Amiga A1000 in 1985 so I'd have a computer while my Elf was apart for major upgrading, but never got the Elf going again.

TI-57

Kamelito

@All: Mentioning models before Amiga don't forget it existed also Sinclair QL!

Last edited by Raffaele on 06-Sep-2014 at 08:28 AM.

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@Xenic

No, actually the C64 has 64K RAM + 20K ROM = 84K total.

>EDIT: The Radio Shack Color Computer Basic operating system was written by Microsoft and far superior to early C64 operating system.

Actually, C64 BASIC was likewise written by Microsoft.

>used the Motorola 6809 CPU; making it the "real" predecessor of the Amiga which used the next generation Motorola CPU (M68000).

Well, the 6809 and 68000 don't have much in common really from a technical point of view.

Last edited by Minuous on 06-Sep-2014 at 12:39 PM.
Last edited by Minuous on 06-Sep-2014 at 11:58 AM.

@kilaueabart

Also, some early games machines--come to think about it, really, ALL early games machines, like 'Pong', were, in fact, specialized computers. But, for General Purpose machines? "Radio Electronics" magazine posted plans for an 8008 based system, IIRC, then there was the aforementioned Altair 8800, a little company up San Fran way put out something they called the 'Apple'....but The first pre-assembled machine you could go out and /buy/, at a store, was the Trash-80, Model I. Had the original version of Microsoft BASIC in it as an extra pice option....

@Minuous
Quote:

No, actually the C64 has 64K RAM + 20K ROM = 84K total.

Here is a quote from a C64 WEB site:
"The most common C64 chip question is why does the  screen say 38,911 bytes free when it supposedly has 64,000 bytes of memory.   This is because nearly half of its memory is used for internal functions like  Microsoft’s Operating System, Commodore Basic 2.0 ."

The Coco had 32K ram available. I guess I'm half wrong on that issue. Both systems eventually found ways to increase the ram: above normal 8bit address space.

I guess there's not much point in arguing which "ancient" computer was better. Both systems were great for learning how to program.

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X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Xenic

Only 64K can be addressed at any given instant, but as explained it uses a bank-switching scheme. At power-on, the ROM is sitting "on top of" the RAM. But with a few pokes to hardware registers you can swap out the ROM and use the corresponding RAM instead. See, for example, section 2.7 of the book "Mastering the Commodore 64" (www.bombjack.org/commodore/books/pdf/Mastering_the_Commodore_64.zip) or look at any C64 memory map. Even the Wikipedia page gets this right (for once).

(BTW 64K = 65536 bytes, not 64000 bytes.)

I'm not a CoCo expert, but my information is that the first CoCos only had 4K RAM. It was/is completely outclassed by the C64.

Well there's the Honeywell Kitchen Computer of 1969...prior to that there's the Heathkit EC-1. While the Kitchen Computer looks to have been a wash (no pun intended!) the Heathkit might have well been picked up by a few hobbyists...

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The problem with AmigaOS on PPC isn't that PPC is big-endian. The problem with AmigaOS on PPC is that PPC is dead-endian.

@mcbone

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX+3 which cost me £150.

(There was a £50 voucher off the standard price of £199.99 in "The Mirror" Newspaper I used).


Regards, Michael

aka rockape


The only stupid question is the question which is never asked.

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@mcbone

Sorry double post.

An error ocured between the computer chair and the keyboard.


Regards, Michael

aka rockape


The only stupid question is the question which is never asked.

Last edited by rockape on 07-Sep-2014 at 10:03 AM.

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"A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to 'Their Country' for an amount of 'up to and including their life'.

@mcbone

Toshiba HX-10 MSX Computer

Commodore 64

Amiga 600

Amiga 1200

I loved the instant on, universal programming language aspect that kids today are missing out on.

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@mcbone

well i think it was the zx80/81 and i have realised that the rapberry pie that i have just sent my answer in buy is hell of a lot faster than my two amiga,best wishes brian.

@mcbone

the first in our house was a commodore 64, which we used exclusively for years. then i fell in love with the macintosh and used those exclusively until around 2002 when i switched to using solaris on x86 and then x64 hardware. now it's amiga at home and GNU/linux, z/VM, and z/OS at work.

-- eliyahu

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"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

I think that's depends about which home computer was popular in your market country.

You know, In some places was C= Pet, C= Vic20, Texas Instrument TI99, or the ".real Amiga predecessor'. The Atari 800/400.


"And with this bomb I say GOOD NIGHT!"

Last edited by Drummerboy on 08-Sep-2014 at 06:21 AM.

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Amiga 1000, 500, 600, 2000, 1200, 4000...

C= VIC 20 / 64 / SX64/ 128

Atari 600XL (SIC Cartdridge)
Atari 800XL (SIO2SD Unit)

Jay Miner`s Atari 2600 - Wood front -

"Amiga, this Computer have a Own Live"