The early days of home computers (The Grauniad)

[PeterJ]

A lovely photo gallery from the Grauniad, with thanks to Raffaele Cecco on Twitter.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... are_btn_tw

Most of these machines I had never heard of before. The article is pushing a book which is being released shortly:


https://thamesandhudson.com/catalog/pro ... ategory/2/

I'm not a great fan of Social Media, but I find Twitter increasingly worth spending time with.

For our overseas friends:

The Grauniad is a nickname for the UK national newpaper, the Guardian, because of a now ill-founded reputation for typos. The name was given to it by the satirical magazine Private Eye. The Guardian newspaper earned its reputation for lots of misprints in the days of hot-metal printing when it was published in Manchester (it was originally called the Manchester Guardian), and the editions that appeared in London were very early editions brought down by train, before all the errors had been spotted.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The Commodore Pet has a weird but at the same time cool appearance. I like its design.

[akeley]

Wow, it's been some time since I've heard somebody use that old "The Grauniad" nick Reminded me of the old big format edition, when it was still top notch quality journalism and not as populist and trendy as it is now.

Some nice computers there but to be honest these pics look a little bit too sterile. The old timey photos of them have lower quality, but I prefer these because the machines somehow come alive being surrounded by the period clutter (or even in the ads).

[PeterJ]

The Commodore Pet has a weird but at the same time cool appearance. I like its design.

I'm old enough to remember using them at work!

[PeterJ]

Wow, it's been some time since I've heard somebody use that old "The Grauniad" nick

I'm rather a fan of Private Eye [mention]akeley[/mention]

[1024MAK]

MITS Altair 8800B - purported to be the machine that kicked off this home computing malarkey... I’ve only seen one in real life, in a computer museum.

Commodore PET 2001 - well known as the first mass produced Commodore machine. There were various versions manufactured including the CBM 3000 and 4000 series. Some had 80 column display systems. Microsoft provided the BASIC interpreter.

Intertec Superbrain - uses a Z80 and runs CP/M. A business machine rather than a home computer.

Sinclair ZX80 - I’ve got one!

Dragon 32 - made in South Wales, at one stage, for a very brief period of time, was the best selling computer in the U.K.
Uses a Motorola 6809 microprocessor.

Apple IIe - rather expensive in the U.K. when new. One of a number of Apple models. Apple computers were widespread in the USA.

Matra Alice 90 - must admit, I had not heard of this one before.

Acorn A3010 - I’ve got one. One of a number of Acorn 32 bit machines (part of the Archimedes family, and very close in design to the A3020). The A3010 replaced the A3000. Both being Acorn’s equivalents to the Atari STFM etc.

Mark

[redballoon]

I ordered the book on Monday and it's just arrived. It's a thicc boi and truly a thing of beauty. Absolutely stunning photographs.

[akeley]

Commodore PET 2001 - well known as the first mass produced Commodore machine. There were various versions manufactured including the CBM 3000 and 4000 series. Some had 80 column display systems. Microsoft provided the BASIC interpreter.

For me PET has the most iconic look of them all, its trapezoid monitor is just too cute and as Seventies as you can possibly get. Would love to have one, but even more so, a TRS-80 Model 3 or 4. These were really underappreciated (Trash 80 etc), a true underdogs of the era, despite being quite pioneering and having a huge software library.

EDIT: I've just realized this book was published by Thames & Hudson...it was one of our clients back when I was working as a courier. If I was still doing it, I'd be probably lugging some of these ones around too...and we hated going there because their parcels were really heavy and unwieldy.

EDIT 2: Only 25 quid? Wow, that's a decent price for this kind of book, if I was in UK I'd definitely get it.

[PeterJ]

Just ordered mine too [mention]redballoon[/mention].

I'm using my money saved from not going to Costa each morning on the way to work!

[PeterJ]

Mine arrived today. Its a thing of beauty. Highly recommended.

Image specially chosen for [mention]Juan F. Ramirez[/mention]!



The Book Depository currently have it for £18.65 (compared to the £24.95 retail)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listi ... 443&sr=8-3

[4thRock]

The PET is on many 1980's TV series and films.
An example from Star Trek II:

Kirk has some vintage collectibles on his house, so there's a chance he actually owns a vintage PET