Home computer

80s Home Computers

The 1980s were the period when computers started to become cheap enough for the general public to start buying them, initially mostly for games. In a manner resembling the expansion of new animal forms in the Cambrian period, large numbers of new machines of all types, including such exotica as the Forth-based Jupiter Ace appeared on the market, and disappeared again. A few types remained for much longer, some, such as the BBC Micro still having a devoted following, but by the end of the decade most were squeezed out between the IBM PC-compatibles and the newer generations of video game consoles.

Many of these computers were superficially similar, having a usually very cheap-to-manufacture keyboard integrated into the processor unit and displaying output on a home television. Many used audio compact cassette as a (notoriously unreliable) storage mechanism, floppy disk drives were very expensive at the time. Cheapness was the order of the day for most of these machines.

• Acorn computers

• • Acorn Atom

• • BBC Micro

• • Acorn Electron

• Amstrad

• • Amstrad CPC 464

• • Amstrad CPC 664

• • Amstrad CPC 6128

• • Amstrad PCW 8256

• • Amstrad PCW 9512

• Apple Computer

• • Apple II family

• • Apple Macintosh

• Atari

• • Atari 400

• • Atari 800

• • Atari ST

• Colecovison

• • Colecovision Adam

• Commodore

• • Kim-1

• • Commodore Pet

• • Vic 20

• • Commodore 64

• • Commodore 128

• • Amiga

• Dragon Data

• • Dragon 32

• • Dragon 64

• IBM

• • PC Jr

• Jupiter Cantab

• • Jupiter Ace

• Memotech

• • Memotech 32

• MSX

• Oric

• • Oric 1

• • Oric Atmos

• Sinclair Research

• • ZX80

• • ZX81

• • ZX Spectrum

• • Sinclair QL

• Tandy / Radio Shack

• • TRS-80 Model I, II, III, ...

• • TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo), Coco 2, Coco 3

• Texas Instruments

• • TI99-4