29 Oct
2006
29 Oct
'06
10:19 a.m.
Hi,
Jules Richardson said:
They still crop up, TRS-80s anyway. There are a couple on eBay atm,
including a 4P, the (trans)portable one that I might put in a bid for.
Stan Barr wrote:
Both Apple and
RS were big enough in the uk circa 1978/9 on to support a
number of dedicated hardware and software suppliers. Both were used
quite a bit by small businesses* that couldn't afford cp/m kit, as
well as hobbyists like me. (I got a TRS-80 Model 1 around the beginning
of '78 - still got it...)
The Apple II was also rebadged and marketed by ITT, in a silver case IIRC.
That's interesting, because I don't know where they've all gone! We see far
more surviving CP/M machines and things like Nascoms and equivalents than we
do Apple and RS systems in the UK. That would suggest that people tossed out
the Apple and RS stuff, but held on to other machines for some reason.
Later on of course UK people seem to have largely made
do with the same 8 bit
machines that the games / education market used - I get the impression that
the acceptance of IBM PCs and compatibles happened *much* sooner in the US
than it did elsewhere.
IBM PCs were a bit expensive* for the home or samll business user until
clones appeared, but they were bought in some numbers by larger firms.
I remember examining some of the first ones in the country at an exhibition
and being very underwhelmed by MSDOS :-) Our firm bought a number of
ATs as soon as they became available, I've still got a low-numbered UK one
I got from work, built late '85 I think, two full-height 20Mb disks.
* In 1982 IBM PCs were advertised at "from 2,800 pounds" (at about 2 dollars
to the pound, I think) for a dual floppy machine with monitor. That would
buy you two Apples with dual floppies and monitors and still leave change.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!