Reflections on the Home Computer Golden Age

[Megalomaniac]

Much as they feel like the enemy to the home computer world, I guess the Tandy 1000 and Amstrad PC both did well for similar reasons, even though they were at different times and prices in very different markets - the same software as the pros used and as the colleges taught, everything you needed and nothing that you didn't. Did people see that home computers with more power were cheaper, or did they just see that they cost a fraction of the price of a 'real' PC? Perceptions and reality can be different things, alas.

All the same, an ST with monochrome monitor was probably a better business computer than an Amstrad PC (which had CGA rather than the high-resolution monochrome Hercules) - but how would you convince a small businessman with ideas above his station, who wanted to join the big leagues and it was either that or something from the Pong people?

The PC Jr in its original form was dead as a flop by the time the A1000 launched. I can't confirm an exact price and spec for the Tandy 1000 range when the A1000 launched, but it seems that the A1000 was a lot more powerful for maybe slightly cheaper, If you could afford a Tandy 1000 though, and wanted business or home software rather than anything creative, I can understand why the Tandy looked a safer buy than an A1000 in those early days when the Amiga was so badly under-supported. You could say 'Blitter' and 'Copper' and 'Denise' to people, but how would you articulate that it meant better software, with so little software to use as evidence? Did Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry really carry that much cachet outside a creative niche?

[CCCP alert]

Commodore, with their PET heritage and attempt/opportunity to produce their own 8088 (or was it 8086) inside MOS should really have taken the bull by the horns and done what Amstrad etc did and made it happen first at the magic price point of £500/$600 etc. They had the respect from the business community with their PET products already.

It's a money maker, a bit like a car dealer selling cheap simple hatchbacks vs one selling sports cars, they may be inferior products but they always sell and put money in the company account. That's why Amstrad outlived C=, Atari really, they made enough money to see them through the Playstation years that wiped out the £300-400 home computer market as soon as preview footage of Ridge Racer was shown in Autumn 1994 on national TV, it blew people away and so only those who needed a PC got a computer, the games players instead got a PS1 worldwide. Well, that's how it felt back then.

As for things like the Peanut (PC Jr) it was already inferior to the $199.99 C64 in 84, from Uridium to Defender of the Crown and everything inbetween it was useless, and if you really needed a PC to do work at home etc you wouldn't be in the market for a home computer anyway, bit of a naff idea, IBM's hubris gone mad. Even as a kid I knew this watching reports of the failure of the PC Jr on TV.

Off topic....
Perhaps in the EU we were more about specs, even if we didn't understand them. I know at the start of 1983 at school we were all trading specs like Top Trumps cards between various computers. Of course you only got what you/your parents could afford so I never got an Atari 800 but that's what I wanted because I played games on it from 81-82 and I wanted one, it was good enough (but too expensive for our household). Absolute fluke we got a C64 because the VIC-20 stopped working within the exchange or full refund 60 day period so I convinced my Dad to go for the C64 as the tech guy offered (with a £40 further reduction in the cost of the C64 as an incentive not to walk off with a full refund as they were out of stock of the VIC-20).