The 20 greatest home computers according to the Guardian

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The Speccy is in a better position than I had thought:

https://amp.theguardian.com/games/2020/ ... ers-ranked

[Alessandro]

The Atari ST at the 19th place out of 20 (below the Acorn Electron, the ZX81 and the VIC20, for gawd's sake!) and the Spectrum just below the C64, which gets to the top three. Tsk tsk

[akeley]

It's not too bad as these lists go actually. It's good they mainly look at influence not hardware specs. I guess ST could be moved up a notch, though then this or that should also go here or there.

[Alessandro]

Well I guess the influence of the Atari ST was higher than that of the VIC20 - and much higher than that of the Electron...

[Lethargeek]

and i think the Archimedes deserves to be there instead of the Electron

[akeley]

Well I guess the influence of the Atari ST was higher than that of the VIC20

It's not something that is really measurable and both of them have a good shout, so...basically, it's a very subjective topic

There's just no way to make such ranking and not cause some disagreements. And I've seen much worse attempts.

I guess they could make it unranked, but then we would have nothing to argue about (and they know it too).

[1024MAK]

Before arguing, apart from the order, what are we taking into account to argue about?

The experience in each country was different for a start. Not many Apples (if any) for sale in my part of England for example. Meanwhile, of course the C64 would be near the top if you lived in the U.S.A. But there were no Sinclair ZX Spectrum machine’s there (not until Timex launched the TS2068).

In terms of sales, I believe there was not much in it between the various Atari ST/STF/STFM/STe machine’s and the various Amiga models. The Atari doing well because it was cheaper. The Amiga being a bit higher in price and the Archimedes being a higher price again. This being relevant because the reasons for the ZX Spectrum 48K and the C64 being so successful was just enough features for the relatively affordable price.

The Electron lost out big time due to Acorn having problems with the ULA chip for it. Which was just as well for Sinclair, otherwise things could have been even trickier that what actually happened.

Yes, the PC won out in the end. But again the experience was different depending on where you were in the world. Both Atari and Commodore had trouble selling their 16/32 bit machines in their home market. But had no trouble selling them in the U.K. and Germany and some other parts of Europe.

In the U.K. at the time, there were a lot less IBM PCs or compatibles around at this time. And the 8088 and 8086 machines were not exactly seen as good games machines. Indeed some ‘PC’ machines were not actually IBM compatible (for example the Victor 9000 / ACT Sirius 1 and the the ACT Apricot). But the situation in the U.S.A. was apparently very different.

Anyway, my list of great machines would include (in no particular order):

• Sinclair ZX Spectrum (obviously)
• Sinclair ZX81
• Commodore 64
• Acorn BBC Micro Model B
• Amstrad CPC 464
• Atari 800
• Atari ST
• Commodore Amiga

The ZX81 has to be included, as it’s that machine that really set the ball rolling for affordable home computing in the U.K.
The ZX Spectrum then followed on from there.

Whatever Speccy owners may think about the C64, there is no denying how successful it was.

The Beeb was the machine with the best and the fastest BASIC around at the time. And a hardware tinkerers wet dream. It also had excellent graphics for the time. And the best keyboard. But it’s sales were limited by the price.

Amstrad entered the market with the astounding CPC 464. It’s not surprising it sold well. A bit of a shame that the games industry did such a rubbish job with the games ports though.

If you wanted arcade games, and could afford it, the Atari 800 was definitely one to look at.

Want something more than what your existing eightbitter can do? Then it was time to get an Atari STFM or an Amiga... Both great machines.

Mark

[PeterJ]

Having recently purchased a TI99 to play Parsec on, I think it's a great machine, especially with extended BASIC. Obviously the Spectrum deserves top position!

[1024MAK]

I have just edited my post above due to:

Code: Select all

M Brain fart, 1,1

Brain unsynchronised with fingers...



Mark

[DouglasReynholm]

Perhaps I should be a bit ashamed to admit this, but I sold a lot of Amigas/ST's off the back of the fact I couldn't "see the PC platform going anywhere" in the late 80's and early 90's. In defence of my myopia, we did only have EGA/VGA at the time, and then you'd have to buy a Soundblaster/Roland module for sound.. then an additional CD Rom reader.. and software to "double your RAM".. and joystick interfaces.. and configure EMM.. and add hard drives.. and write batch files..

Actually, I totally forgive my younger self.

[PeterJ]

[mention]1024MAK[/mention] ,

I've never understood the love of the CPC. I know there are some ways around it but standard resolution with 16 colours is just 160x200.

Higher resolutions again in standard modes drops it to 4 or 2 colours.

Having said that the excitement when I saw the machine in Your Computer with a screen included was amazing.

[1024MAK]

Yeah, but there is only so much data that a Z80 can move around.

So just like the BBC B and various other machines with bit mapped displays, you always get a compromise between resolutions and number of colours

I thought that the CPC 464 was good value (not that I bought one, because I already had a Speccy) at the time because you got a nice Z80 based machine with a 64k bytes of RAM, a proper keyboard, built in tape deck, reasonable monitor, a good BASIC and a possible 27 colours even if the number on screen was a bit limited (4), or the resolution was a chunky.

And just like many other machines, soon tricks were found to enable slightly better graphics compared to the standard modes.

Mark

[1024MAK]

...the resolution was a chunky.

Add “bit” between “was a” and “chunky”

I obviously was a bit tired when I wrote that

Mark

[1024MAK]

Some here will remember the name Memotech. The man behind various expansions for the ZX81 and the Memotech MTX500 / MTX512 computers, Geoff Boyd, has penned a critical response to the article linked in the first post: https://discussion.theguardian.com/comm ... /143585778

Mark

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]1024MAK[/mention],

That is a great read.

Peter

[akeley]

The man behind various expansions for the ZX81 and the Memotech MTX500 / MTX512 computers, Geoff Boyd, has penned a critical response to the article linked in the first post.

Interesting take, but he misses the point of the article by a huge margin. It was a general attempt to paint a broader picture, of machines which as it says "inspired a generation of gamers and programmers". And Boyd's ranking is totally UK centric and concentrates on early options. It's also totally biased since he worked on this stuff

[catmeows]

Recently I have discovered a yugoslavian computer Galaksija. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_(computer)
Quite an underdog but with very interesting history.

[1024MAK]

But unless you set out some rules / criteria, any list will be biased, because it is so subjective...

Also note that although I agree with some of what he (Geoff Boyd) says, I don’t agree with everything he says.

If it’s supposed to be a world wide list, why is it mainly U.K., U.S.A. and Japanese computers that are in the Guardian article?

Sharps Z80 based computers aren’t mentioned. The various manufacturers of CP/M machines aren’t mentioned. Olivetti and Thompson (the French company) aren’t mentioned. The various ZX Spectrum ‘clones’ from the USSR aren’t mentioned.

Heck, the U.K. alone had more than twenty home computers that were available in the 1980s.

In my part of the world, in the 1980s, the only American computers that were easy to find for sale were from TI and Commodore. If you searched, maybe you would have been able to find a Tandy with some computers. But Apple computers were rare because they were so expensive.

Oh, and BTW the TRS80 is not the computer that they have a photo of...

Mark

[akeley]

If it’s supposed to be a world wide list, why is it mainly U.K., U.S.A. and Japanese computers that are in the Guardian article?

Sharps Z80 based computers aren’t mentioned. The various manufacturers of CP/M machines aren’t mentioned. Olivetti and Thompson (the French company) aren’t mentioned. The various ZX Spectrum ‘clones’ from the USSR aren’t mentioned.

Well, it's supposed to be a top twenty, so you can't mention every single machine. And his article had a set of rules - the most influential for games and programmers.
Mr Boyd's take read more like "Top 5 UK's micros from 1978-1983". Sure, you can do that, but it's much more limiting and Guardian is a world wide website.

Overall, I'm not saying that article is perfect or that I agree totally with his ranking, just that given the impossibility of creating a list which would please everybody* he did not do too badly. His top 5 is rather forward-thinking and quite good. And sorry, much as I love Sinclair stuff #1 does not belong to ZX81

*I'm pretty sure most other platform-specific forums have a "we wuz robbed" thread going on

[1024MAK]

And his article had a set of rules - the most influential for games and programmers.

It actually says:

Games
The 20 greatest home computers – ranked!
They seemed like the future … and here we are. We remember the key PC machines that inspired a generation of gamers and programmers

That’s not what I call a set of rules...

The point with the ZX81 is that it’s success was the reason that the ZX Spectrum was developed. So it was a key machine IMHO.

And I already said that I don’t agree with everything that Geoff Boyd said.

Mark

[p13z]

The zeddie was also a masterpiece of minimal design. It was a proof of concept for a super cheap, mass market home computer.

[Alessandro]

Recently I have discovered a yugoslavian computer Galaksija. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_(computer)
Quite an underdog but with very interesting history.

Tomaz Kac et al. wrote a Galaksija emulator for the Spectrum, you might be interested in it.

[vanpeebles]

It's a poor list and newspapers are gash