🚀 go-pugleaf

On Saturday, March 24, 2018 at 1:51:12 AM UTC-4, Charles Richmond wrote:

> > On Monday, March 19, 2018 at 1:43:54 AM UTC-4, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
> > 
> >>> Also the "personal computer" boom started in the 80s.
> >>
> >>       Mid '70s.
> >>
> >>       IBM joined in after the market had been established.
> > 
> > 
> > IMHO, the personal computer market was a niche specialty field
> > with _relatively_ few units sold until the IBM PC hit the streets
> > _and_ was accepted by the business community.


> IMHO your HO is not worth much.  Apple sold quite a good number of 
> computers *before* the IBM PC.  Radio Shack did so well selling their 
> computers that they were opening Radio Shack Computer stores.  In May of 
> 1980, I bought a Radio Shack Color Computer at one of these computer 
> stores. The Color Computer had a Motorola 6809 processor in it.

I still maintain that before the IBM PC, personal computers were
still a specialty niche market.  Yes, there were Radio Shack
and Apple computers out there.  But in _relative_ terms, the
number of users was still very small.

There was certainly an automobile world before Henry Ford came 
along with the Model T.  But I think most people would agree that
the Model T's low price, durability, and widespread availability 
was what revolutionized the automobile field.

I knew a lot of early purchasers, and many of them bought machines
for hobbyist or experimental reasons.  That is, many business users
got them with the attitude, "well, computers are neat, so let's see
what this can do for us."  Some business users made very good use 
of them--I knew a few who ended up evolving from a retail store
into being a computer consultant for other businesses.  But other
business users ended up with a machine that sat on a shelf, perhaps
being slightly used for one small application.

As others mentioned, the magic letters "IBM" added a great deal
of cachet to the personal computer market.  I would also submit
that the wide variety of software and specialty hardware developed
for the IBM PC helped sales (we bought such a unit for a specific
data communications application).  In addition, I would submit
that the discount priced clone market, which seemed to sprout
up awfully fast, also contributed to the boom.

As an aside, it seemed to me most IBM PC's came with CGA, the
coarse color monitor.  I thought it looked like crap and hated
using it.  I only saw a few units with a monochrome screen, but
they looked a lot better.  VGA greatly improved things.

FWIW, at the supermarket, the modern scanner/register has a
screen and for whatever reason, the typeface and style looks
just like the DOS screen of the old days (in large characters.)