>
> On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> > I suppose that's true, Hans, BUT, in1982, there were few other processors
> > than the 6502 and Z-80 in popular use, with the exception of the 8080A and
> > the 8085, of course.
>
> In it's first couple of years, the IBM PC (introduced 8/11/1981) sold
> enough machines that surely the 8088 could have been said to be in popular
> use!
> [this is a comment about market, NOT an endorsement]
>
> > The majority of home computers, though, used one of
> > these two, at that time. Several years later, we found the 6510 and 6809 in
> > commercially interesting applications, but not for as long a period as the
> > Z-80 and 6502. These two had a life of nearly ten years before the IBM-PC
> > and its clones wrenched the home computer market from their grasp.
>
> 10 years?
> Does this imply that the PC was not the dominant force until the end of
> the 80s?
> [this is a comment about market, NOT an endorsement]
I'd have to agree with this. PCs were designed for business, so they lagged
far behind other machines in things home users tended to want - color,
sound, and so on. About the turn of the decade was when they really started
to become dominant in the home computing world, wrenching it away from the
C64/Amiga/Mac/Apple2/Atari/etc market. The last survivor was the Radio Shack
Color Computer - sort of appropriate, since they marketed the first personal
computer in the TRS-80 model 1. Note that this also is strictly the US market.
The world market is quite different and I know zip about it.
--
Jim Strickland
jim_at_DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there?
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Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 15:42:05 BST