The IBM-PC drove many other architectures into extinction in just a few years. The market before the IBM PC was dominated by systems using the
6502The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
or
Z80The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
microprocessors, and
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
or proprietary operating systems. A
16-bit-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor.Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816...
CPU was available, the
Intel 8086The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel and introduced on the market in 1978, which gave rise to the x86 architecture. Intel 8088, released in 1979, was essentially the same chip, but with an external 8-bit data bus , and is notable as the processor used in the original IBM...
, from 1978 but it was not only expensive, but also expensive to use, as it used a 16-bit data bus, that changed when the
Intel 8088The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...
came on the market in July 1979.
Details
On August 12, 1981 the IBM-PC was released, which used the then brand new Intel 8088 processor, which allowed up to 1 megabyte of RAM while still maintaining an
8-bitEight-bit CPUs normally use an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus which means that their address space is limited to 64 KB. This is not a "natural law", however, so there are exceptions....
-wide data bus to memory and peripherals. This allowed easy use of the large family of 8-bit-compatible support chips. The reputation of IBM for business computing, and the large number of compatible computers and third-party plug-compatible peripherals, allowed the PC and
IBM PC compatibleIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
s to make substantial sales in business applications.
Many other companies at the time were also making "business personal computers" with a completely different design, a few still using 8-bit microprocessors. The ones that used Intel
x86 processorsThe term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The term derived from the fact that many early processors backward compatible with the 8086 also had names ending in "86". Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the...
most often used
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
or
CP/M-86CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format...
, just as 8-bit systems with an Intel
8080The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit microprocessor was released in April 1974 running at 2 MHz , and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor...
compatible CPU normally used
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
.
In the very beginning, when the IBM-PC did not yet dominate the market, these 8086/8088/80186 based systems were not duplicates of the IBM-PC design (
clonesIn computing, a clone is a hardware or software system that is designed to mimic another system. Compatibility with the original system is usually the explicit purpose of cloning hardware or low-level software such as operating systems...
), but just as in the 8-bit CP/M based market had different designs. Even after a few years, manufacturers such as
Digital-Overview:The Rainbow 100 was a microcomputer introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1982. This desktop unit had the video-terminal display circuitry from the VT102, a video monitor similar to the VT220 in a box with both 4 MHz Z80 and 4.81 MHz 8088 CPUs...
, HP,
Sanyois a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 324 offices and plants worldwide, together employing more than 11,000 employees.On November 2, 2008, Sanyo and...
,
TandyThe Tandy 2000 was a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in late 1983 which used the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.7 MHz 8088 processor, and the IBM PC AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286...
,
Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. TI is the No. 4 manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide after Intel, Samsung and Toshiba, and is the top supplier...
,
Tulip ComputersNedfield NV , formerly Tulip Computers NV is a Dutch computer manufacturer that manufactures PC clones. It was founded in 1979, and listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 1984...
,
NEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
,
Wang LaboratoriesWang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...
and
XeroxXerox Corporation is a fortune 500 global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
continued to introduce personal computers that were not at all or only slightly hardware-compatible with the IBM-PC, although they were x86 and MS-DOS-based.
For performance reasons, many popular software applications for the IBM-PC bypassed MS-DOS and even the computer's ROM
BIOSIn IBM PC Compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS, is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface. The BIOS is boot firmware, designed to be the first code run by a PC when powered on...
, and directly wrote to memory and peripherals. For example, a program might directly update the video refresh memory, instead of using MS-DOS calls and device drivers to alter the appearance of the screen. Many such important software packages, (such as the spreadsheet program
Lotus 1-2-3Lotus 1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program from Lotus Software . It was the IBM PC's first "killer application"; its huge popularity in the mid-1980s contributed significantly to the success of the IBM PC in the corporate environment....
, and
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
's own
Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0Microsoft Flight Simulator began life as a set of articles on computer graphics, written by Bruce Artwick throughout 1976, about flight simulation using 3-D graphics. When the editor of the magazine told Artwick that subscribers were interested in purchasing such a program, Artwick founded subLOGIC...
) and especially games, that directly accessed the IBM-PC's hardware, bypassing the BIOS, did not work on computers that were even trivially different from the IBM-PC. So the systems that were not 100% IBM-PC compatible also quickly became just as obsolete as the other completely incompatible systems. One of the very first computers to wholly adapt the 100% identical architecture strategy was the
Compaq portableThe Compaq Portable was the first product in the Compaq portable series to be commercially available under the Compaq Computer Corporation brand . It was the first IBM PC compatible portable computer...
, in November 1982.
Domination of the clones
A few years later, virtually all the other business personal computer systems were gone from the market. The only non-100%-IBM-PC compatible systems that remained were those systems that were classified as home computers, and those made by Apple Inc., or business systems that offered a high level of integration (bundled accounting and inventory) or multitasking and multi-user features, not available on the PC.
But
home computerHome computer was a class of personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as accessible personal computers, more capable than video game consoles...
s still held a part of the personal computer market, so IBM decided to try to capture this market too with the
IBM-PC juniorThe IBM PCjr was IBM's first attempt to enter the market for relatively inexpensive educational and home-use personal computers...
Announced November 1983, but first shipped in March 1984. But this system flopped, and it was only after around 1988 when
IBM-PC clonesIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
became more multimedia capable with the advent of the cheap copies of the VGA
video cardA video card, video adapter, graphics-accelerator card, display adapter, or graphics card is an expansion card whose function is to generate and output images to a display...
, and the
sound BlasterThe Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming-interface at application-level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
-compatible
sound cardA sound card is a computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or...
, that the clones also drove the last of the remaining home computers like the
AmigaThe Amiga was 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 bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985...
,
Atari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985...
, and
MSX2MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s. It was a Microsoft-led attempt to create unified standards among hardware makers, conceived by one-time Microsoft Japan executive Kazuhiko Nishi. Despite Microsoft's involvement, MSX-based machines were seldom seen in the...
computers from the market. By 1995 there were practically no more new systems released that were not IBM-PC clones or Apple Macs. Apple's
MacintoshThe Macintosh, or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced on January 24 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a...
remained the sole holdout, in both operating system and hardware architecture for many years, but Macs began to use 'industry standard' PC Input /Output ports after about 1998, and in 2005 Apple announced plans to switch to Intel processors, making Macintosh hardware essentially identical to that of PC compatibles.
Previous business PCs
More than 50 new business oriented personal computer systems came on the market no more than a year or so before the IBM-PC (August 1981). Very few of them had switched to a 16- or 32-bit microprocessor, as the general thought was that 8-bit systems were perfectly adequate and the Intel 8086 was too expensive to use. The Intel 8088 changed that because it was much cheaper to implement. Some of the more important manufacturers that made them were Apple Inc.,
Ohio ScientificOhio Scientific Inc. was a United States computer company that built and marketed computers from the late 1970s to the early 1980s...
,
Commodore InternationalCommodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a US electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania which played a vital role in the development of the home/personal computer industry in the 1980s. The company is also known under the name of its R&D operation, Commodore...
,
CromemcoCromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers in the early days of the home computer revolution. The Cromemco Dazzler was the first color graphics card available for personal computers....
,
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC...
,
IntersystemsInterSystems Corporation is a privately-held vendor of software for high-performance database management, rapid application development, integration, and healthcare information systems...
, Morrow Designs,
North Star ComputersNorthStar Computers was originally named Kentucky Fried Computer and changed their name prior to the release of their Horizon product, an eight-bit business computer that was shipped with the then industry-standard CP/M operating system or NorthStar's proprietary operating system, NDOS.While...
,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. HP has its United States offices at the former old Compaq Campus in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, Latin America offices in Miami-Dade County, Florida,...
,
OlivettiIng. C. Olivetti & Co., SpA., known as Olivetti, is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- History :...
,
Sharpis a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in September 1912.It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915. Since then it has developed into one of the leading electronics companies in the world...
,
Ohio ScientificOhio Scientific Inc. was a United States computer company that built and marketed computers from the late 1970s to the early 1980s...
,
Processor TechnologyProcessor Technology Corporation was a microcomputer company founded by Bob Marsh in April 1975.-History:Bob Marsh, Lee Felsenstein and Gordon French started designing the Sol-20 Terminal Computer in June 1975. The SOL-20 utilized the Intel 8080 8-bit microprocessor chip, running at 2 MHz...
,
South West Technical Products CorporationThe U.S. company SWTPC started in 1964 as DEMCO . It was incorporated in 1967 as Southwest Technical Products Corporation of San Antonio, Texas...
,
Tandy CorporationTandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, which is best known for purchasing and giving its name to the Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack Corporation. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963...
and
ZenithZenith Electronics Corporation is a former American manufacturer of televisions headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois. It was the inventor of the modern remote control, and it introduced HDTV in North America. Zenith is now a member of the South Korean conglomerate LG Group by way of LG...
/
HeathkitHeathkits were products of the Heath Company, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Their products included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form...
.
Systems launched shortly after the IBM-PC
Shortly after the IBM-PC came on the market, a split became obvious between systems that opted to use an x86 compatible processor, and those that chose another microprocessor. Almost all of the x86 using systems opted to also provide a version of MS-DOS, while the others all used different operating systems, except for the z80 based systems that almost all offered a version of
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
. MS-DOS acted as a
catalystCatalysis is the process in which the rate of a chemical reaction is either increased or decreased by means of a chemical substance known as a catalyst. Unlike other reagents that participate in the chemical reaction, a catalyst is not consumed by the reaction itself. The catalyst may participate...
for the x86 based systems in that it brought about a split in the market between x86 based and non 86 based systems.
Eventually the second "
branchA phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities that are believed to have a common ancestor. In a phylogenetic tree, each node with descendants represents the most recent common ancestor of the...
" died out, leaving only the first branch. But there was also a branch between non 100% IBM-PC compatible MS-DOS machines, and 100% IBM-PC compatible machines, with the first branch dying out a short while later. The end effect that in a short while a marked filled with dozens of different competing systems was reduced to a
monocultureIn the field of computer science, monoculture is a term used to describe a community of computers, all running identical software. All the computer systems in the community have the same vulnerabilities, and, like agricultural monocultures, are subject to catastrophic failure in the event of a...
of IBM-PC compatible MS-DOS using systems.
x86 based systems (using MS-DOS)
There were dozens of non IBM-PC compatible, but Intel x86-based, personal computers that came on the market around the time, or shortly after, the first (1981) IBM-PC. They used the Intel 8088, 8086 or 80186 processor and almost without exception offered a
genericGeneric is something that is general, common, or inclusive rather than specific, unique, or selective.* Generic mood, a grammatical mood used to make generalized statements like Snow is white...
, (Not specifically written to run on an IBM-PC) version of MS-DOS and software written for the Intel
8086/8088The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The term derived from the fact that many early processors backward compatible with the 8086 also had names ending in "86". Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the...
. However, they generally made no attempt whatsoever to copy the IBM-PCs architecture, so these machines had different I/O addresses, different system bus, different video controllers or other differences from the original PC which were sometimes rather minor which were supposed to improve upon its design. But as a side effect it meant that software that directly manipulated the hardware would not run correctly. In most cases, the volume of machines with hardware differences from the PC was not large enough to attract support from software manufacturers, though a few computer manufacturers also arranged for compatible versions of popular applications to be developed and sold with their machines. Real 100% compatibles (clones) appeared on the market just a year or so later, when the advantage to do so became impossible to ignore. Some of the more important systems were: ACT Apricot by
ACTApricot Computers is a British manufacturer of business personal computers, originally founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" , changing their name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. in the 1980s...
, the
Seequa ChameleonThe Seequa Chameleon was an early 1980s luggable personal computer; it was capable of running both the DOS and CP/M-80 operating systems. It did so by having both Zilog Z-80 and Intel 8088 microprocessors....
, the
HP-150The HP-150, a "compact, powerful and innovative" computer made by Hewlett-Packard in 1983 and based on the Intel 8088, was one of the world's earliest commercialized touch screen computers. The machine was not IBM PC compatible, although it was MS-DOS compatible. Customized MS-DOS versions 2.01,...
by
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. HP has its United States offices at the former old Compaq Campus in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, Latin America offices in Miami-Dade County, Florida,...
, the
MBC-550The MBC-550 was a small and inexpensive personal computer in "pizza-box" style, featuring an Intel 8088 microprocessor and running a version of MS-DOS...
by
Sanyois a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 324 offices and plants worldwide, together employing more than 11,000 employees.On November 2, 2008, Sanyo and...
, the 80186 based Mindset graphics computer, Morrow Designs Morrow Pivot, the
MZ-5500The Sharp MZ is a series of personal computers sold in Japan and Europe by Sharp beginning in 1978.-Overview:...
by
Sharpis a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in September 1912.It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915. Since then it has developed into one of the leading electronics companies in the world...
, the NCR Decision Mate V by
NCR CorporationNCR Corporation is a technology company specializing in products for the retail, financial, travel, healthcare, food service, entertainment, gaming and public sector industries. Its main products are self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, check processing...
, the
The NorthStar AdvantageNorthStar Computers was originally named Kentucky Fried Computer and changed their name prior to the release of their Horizon product, an eight-bit business computer that was shipped with the then industry-standard CP/M operating system or NorthStar's proprietary operating system, NDOS.While...
by
NorthstarNorthstar is a fictional character, a superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Through his mutation, Northstar gains superhuman powers, which he uses for the betterment of society. Although originally a member of Alpha Flight, a fictional team of Canadian superhumans,...
, the PC-9800 system from
NEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
, the
Rainbow 100-Overview:The Rainbow 100 was a microcomputer introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1982. This desktop unit had the video-terminal display circuitry from the VT102, a video monitor similar to the VT220 in a box with both 4 MHz Z80 and 4.81 MHz 8088 CPUs...
from
DECDigital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC...
, the
TRS-80 Model 2000TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The line won popularity with hobbyists, home users, and small-businesses...
,
Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. TI is the No. 4 manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide after Intel, Samsung and Toshiba, and is the top supplier...
TI Professional,
Tulip'sNedfield NV , formerly Tulip Computers NV is a Dutch computer manufacturer that manufactures PC clones. It was founded in 1979, and listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 1984...
Tulip System-1The Tulip system I was a 16-bit personal computer based on the Intel 8086 and made by Tulip Computers.It came on the market just a few months after IBM launched its IBM PC XT in July 1983.-External references:...
and the Victor 9000 by
Sirius Systems TechnologySirius Systems Technology was a personal computer manufacturer in Scotts Valley, California. It was founded in 1980 by Chuck Peddle and Chris Fish, formerly of MOS Technology and capitalized by Walter Kidde Inc. In late 1982 Sirius acquired Victor Business Systems from Kidde and changed its name...
.
non x86 based Systems (so not using MS-DOS)
Not all manufacturers switched to an Intel x86 and MS-DOS based solution. A few dozen companies completely ignored the existence of the IBM-PC architecture and went their own way. Some of these systems used a 32-bit microprocessor, the
MotorolaMotorola, Inc. is an American, multinational, Fortune 100, telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, and also designs and sells wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal...
68000, others kept on using 8-bit microprocessor(s). Many of these systems were eventually forced off from the market by the onslaught of the IBM-PC clones, although their architecture often was superior to the capabilities of the IBM-PC clones, especially concerning multimedia capabilities. Two exceptions to the extinction of these systems were the
Apple LisaThe Apple Lisa was a personal computer designed at Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s.The Lisa project was started at Apple in 1978 and evolved into a project to design a powerful personal computer with a graphical user interface that would be targeted toward business customers.Around...
by Apple Inc., that still has descendants in its successor the Apple Macintosh, and the
Acorn ComputersAcorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro and the Acorn Archimedes...
Acorn ArchimedesThe Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM RISC CPU. The name is also commonly used to describe computers which were based on the same architecture, even where Acorn did not include 'Archimedes' in the official name.-Early...
, (later
Risc PCThe Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/Acorn RISC Machine computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes....
) which microprocessor (specifically designed for the Archimedes) the
ARMThe ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Limited. It was known as the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that as the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in terms of numbers produced...
. still lives on in many hand-held devices and small
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
based systems, and the RISC PC still has descendants like the
A9HomeThe A9Home is a small form factor desktop computer running RISC OS Adjust32. It was officially unveiled at the 2005 Wakefield Show, and is the second commercial ARM based RISC OS computer to run a 32-bit version of RISC OS....
, the
Iyonix PCThe Iyonix PC is an Acorn-clone personal computer from Castle Technology.Features include:* Intel XScale 80321 600 MHz 32-bit processor* Two 64-bit and two 32-bit PCI slots* RISC OS version 5 in hardware ROM module* Support for the Linux operating system...
and until a few years ago the RiscStation R7500.
Other well known systems were: the
AmigaThe Amiga was 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 bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985...
, the
Amstrad PCWThe Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was...
series, the
Atari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985...
, the C-10 by
CromemcoCromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers in the early days of the home computer revolution. The Cromemco Dazzler was the first color graphics card available for personal computers....
, Intertecs Compustar II VPU Model 20, the Corvus Concept by Corvus Systems, the Kaypro 10 by
KayproKaypro Corporation, commonly called Kaypro, was an American home/personal computer manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems to develop computers to compete with the then-popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer...
,
Fujitsuis a Japanese multinational computer hardware and IT services company headquartered in the Shiodome City Center complex in Minato, Tokyo.. Fujitsu's central focus is on providing IT-driven business solutions, but the company and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in...
s
Micro 16sThe Fujitsu Micro 16s was a business personal computer from Fujitsu that was launched in 1983, around the same time as the launch of the original IBM-PC/XT. The Micro 16s used a plug in microprocessor board, and two models were offered, an Intel 8086 and a Zilog Z80expansion board...
, the Micro Decision by Morrow Designs, the MTU-130 by Micro Technology Unlimited, the PC-8800 system from
NEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
, the
Xerox 820The Xerox 820 was an 8-bit desktop computer sold by Xerox. The computer featured floppy disk drives for mass storage, and used the CP/M operating system...
by
XeroxXerox Corporation is a fortune 500 global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
, the QX-10 by Epson, the RoadRunner from MicroOffice, the
Sun-1Sun-1 was the first generation of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in May 1982. These were based on a CPU board designed by Andy Bechtolsheim while he was a graduate student at Stanford University and funded by DARPA...
and
Sun-2The Sun-2 series of UNIX computer workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series...
by
Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982...
and the TRS-80 model 16, 16e and 6000 by
Tandy CorporationTandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, which is best known for purchasing and giving its name to the Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack Corporation. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963...
.
See also
- How the trend to a mono-culture PC market helped killing off Byte Magazine
- Open architecture
Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture that allows adding, upgrading and swapping components. For example, the IBM PC and Apple IIe have an open architecture, whereas the Apple IIc and Amiga 500 computers have a closed architecture...
- Comparison of x86 DOS operating systems
- Historical and licensing information :- Technical specifications :- See also :* Timeline of x86 DOS operating systems* List of operating systems* Comparison of Linux distributions* Comparison of operating systems- External links :* *...
- Wintel
Wintel is portmanteau of Windows and Intel. It usually means a computer based on an Intel x86 compatible processor and running the Microsoft Windows operating system.-Background:...
- PC-DOS
IBM PC DOS is a Proprietary DOS system for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles, manufactured and sold by IBM from the 1980s to the 2000s.-Naming:Official product name of "PC DOS" are as below:...
- Apple Inc.
- History of computing hardware (1960s–present)
- List of machines running CP/M
External links