1983 Micro prices (was Re: The Origins of DOS)

Chris M wrote: Not on the desktop - I think there were a fair few 'server' class systems around though. But yes, my understanding is that the PC just didn't take off in the UK like it did in the USA (and elsewhere?). Remember that the UK had a massive amount of choice when it came to general desktop machines - quite probably more so than the USA did. UK society at the time was very much "squeeze every last possible drop out of what you had", whilst the impression I've got of the US was that people were far more willing to upgrade systems reasonably frequently to whatever the latest thing available was. In education, yes. Not so much for home or business use, though. What timeframe are we talking - say 1982 to 1985 or so? The education market was split primarily between Research Machines and Acorn, with a few others picking up the scraps. The home computer market was amazingly diverse, but frequent names were Sinclair, Acorn and Commodore. The corporate world of desktops was similarly diverse (with the likes of CP/M crates, Commodore, Apple, and IBM all featuring) - but there were also a huge number of business people making use of the same machines that were found in the home. Often these people were talented enough to write their own bespoke software to manage their business, but there was a healthy market in 'business' software written for these machines too. A while back I came up with a list of early-80s UK computer manufacturers (in order to see how much space we'd need for a UK-specific room at the museum). It ended up being pretty massive... Good grief, why? They're pretty nasty. If you want something from RML, go for a 380Z or a 480Z - those are 'real' computers; the 380Z has that lovely rugged 'military' feel to it with all the fun of a modular system (albeit without a rigid backplane :-) whilst the 480Z is a great example of good design, both hardware and packaging. cheers Jules