Everything about Home Computer totally explained
A
home computer was a class of
personal computers entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. These computers typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented desktop personal computers of the time, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business personal computers, and was usually sold for purposes of education,
game play, and personal productivity use such as
word processing. Advertisements for early home computers were rife with possibilities for their use in the home, from cataloging recipes to personal finance to
home automation, but these were seldom realized in practice as they usually required the home computer user to learn how to
program; a significant time commitment many weren't willing to make. Still, for many the Home Computer offered the first possibility to learn to program.
The home computer became affordable for the general public due to the mass production of the
microprocessor. In contrast to their, which had front-mounted switches and
blinkenlights to control and indicate internal system status and often came in kit form, home computers were designed to be used by the average consumer, not necessarily an electronics hobbyist. These machines were pre-assembled, with keyboards and plug-in peripheral devices such as screens, cassette tape recorders,
joysticks, and (later) disk drives. Usually the manufacturer would provide all the peripheral devices practical to add to any system as extra cost accessories. Often peripherals were not interchangeable between brands of home computer (or sometimes even between successive models of the same brand).
Very typically a home computer would have had a version of the
BASIC programming language in
read-only permanent memory. To save the cost of a dedicated monitor, the home computer often would have connected either directly or through an
RF modulator to the family
TV set as video display and sound system.
Background
After the success of systems like the
RadioShack TRS-80, the
Commodore PET and the
Apple Inc. Apple II in 1977, large numbers of new machines of all types began to appear during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some home computers sold many units over several years, such as the
BBC Micro,
Sinclair ZX Spectrum,
Atari 800XL and
Commodore 64, and attracted third-party software development.
To some extent, low-end home computers competed with
video game consoles. The markets weren't entirely distinct, as both had the ability to be used for games. A
common marketing tactic was to show a computer system and console playing games side by side, then emphasising the computer's greater ability by showing it running user-created programs, educational software, word processing, spreadsheet and other applications while the game console showed a blank screen or continued playing the same repetitive game. Books were available for most models of computer with titles along the lines of "64 Amazing BASIC Games for the Commodore 64" and were a popular means of both learning to program and software distribution. Some video game consoles offered "programming packs", consisting of a version of BASIC in a ROM cartridge. The
ColecoVision console even had an expansion module which converted it into a full-fledged
Coleco Adam computer system. During the peak years of the home computer market, scores of models were produced, usually with little or no thought given to compatibility between different manufacturers or even within product lines of one manufacturer. The concept of a
computer platform didn't exist, except for the Japanese
MSX standard.
The introduction of the
IBM Personal Computer in August 1981 would eventually lead to standardization in personal computing, largely due to the system's
open architecture, which encouraged production of
third-party clones of the unit. While the
Apple II would be quickly displaced by the
IBM PC for office use,
Apple Computer's 1984 release of the
Apple Macintosh created
a new model for the home computer which
IBM-compatible computers would eventually imitate.
The declining cost of IBM-compatible "personal computers" on the one hand, and the greatly increased graphics, sound, and storage capabilities of dedicated video game consoles on the other, caused the market segment for home computers to vanish in the early 1990s in the
US. In
Europe, the home computer remained a distinct presence for a few years more, with the Amiga and Atari ST lines being the dominant players, but today a computer purchased for home use anywhere will be very similar to those used in offices - made by the same manufacturers, with compatible peripherals, operating systems, and application software.
Technology
Many home computers were superficially similar. Most had a keyboard integrated into the case; sometimes a cheap-to-manufacture
chiclet keyboard in the early days, although full-travel keyboards quickly became universal due to overwhelming consumer preference. Most systems could use an
RF modulator to display 20–40 column text output on a home television. The use of a television set as a display almost defines the pre-PC home computer. Although monitors dedicated for use with a computer were available for this market segment, it was often a later purchase only made after users had bought a floppy disk drive, printer, modem, and the other pieces of a full system. This "
peripherals sold separately" approach is another defining characteristic of home computers. Many first time computer buyers brought a base C-64 system home to find they needed to purchase a disk drive or
Datassette before they could make use of it.
In the early part of the 1980s, home computers were mostly based on
8-bit microprocessor technology, typically the
MOS Technology 6502 or the
Zilog Z80. A notable exception was the
TI-99 series, announced in 1979 with a 16 bit
TMS9900 CPU.
Processor
clock rates were typically 1-2 MHz but this aspect of performance wasn't emphasized by users or manufacturers, as dealing with the systems' limited RAM capacity, graphics capabilities and storage options took priority. Clock speed was considered a technical detail of interest only to users needing accurate timing. To economize on component cost, often the same
crystal used to produce color television compatible signals was also divided down and used for the processor clock. This meant processors rarely operated at their full rated speed, and had the side-effect that
European and
North American versions of the same home computer operated at slightly different speeds and different video resolution due to different television standards.
Many home computers initially used the ubiquitous
compact audio cassettes as a storage mechanism. Most implementations were notoriously slow and unreliable, but
floppy disk drives found on more costly business-oriented microcomputers were expensive and used disks eight inches wide at the beginning of the home computer era. Costs declined toward the end of the 1980s as sales of microcomputers increased and large production of 5.25" drive mechanisms enabled
economy of scale. The 5.25" floppy disk drives would become standard, with 3.5" drives being made available for most systems toward the latter part of the decade. Most software for home computers remained sold on 5.25" disks, however; 3.5" drives were used for data storage. Standardization of disk formats wasn't common; sometimes even different models from the same manufacturer used different disk formats. Various
copy protection schemes were developed for floppy disks but most were broken in short order, and many users would only tolerate them for games as wear and tear on disks was a significant issue in an entirely floppy-based system, and having a backup disk of vital application software was seen as important. Copy programs that advertised their ability to copy or even remove common protection schemes were a common category of
utility software.
In contrast to modern computers, home computers most often had their OS stored in
ROM chips. This made startup times very fast - no more than a few seconds but made upgrades difficult or impossible without buying a new unit. Usually only the most severe bugs were fixed by issuing new ROMs to replace the old ones at the user's cost. The user interface was usually only a
BASIC interpreter coupled to a character-based
screen or
line editor, with applications performing all other OS duties themselves. As multitasking wasn't common on home computers until late in the '80s, this lack of
API support wasn't much of a liability. Application programs usually accessed hardware directly to perform a specific task, often "switching out" the ROM based OS to free the
address space it occupied. In an enduring reflection of their early cassette-oriented nature, most home computers loaded their
Disk Operating System (DOS) separately from the main OS. The DOS was only used to send commands to the floppy disk drive and needn't be loaded to perform other computing functions. One notable exception was Commodore, whose disk drives actually contained a 6502 processor and
Commodore DOS in ROM. Many home computers also had a
cartridge interface which accepted ROM-based software. This was occasionally used for expansion or upgrades such as
fast loaders, and application software on cartridge did exist, but the vast majority of cartridges were games.
From about 1985, the high end of the home computer market began to be dominated by "next generation" home computers using the 16-bit
Motorola 68000 chip, which helped to enable the greatly increased abilities of the
Amiga and
Atari ST series. Clock rates on these systems were approximately 8 MHz with RAM capacities of 256 kB (for the base Amiga 1000 system) up to 1024 kB (1 megabyte, a milestone, first seen on the Atari 1040 ST). The Amiga and ST both had GUIs inspired by the
Apple Macintosh, but at a list price of $2495 (over $5000 in 2007 dollars), the Macintosh itself was too expensive for most households.
Radio frequency interference
After the first wave of computers landed in American homes, the US
Federal Communications Commission began receiving complaints of
electromagnetic interference to television reception. By 1979 the FCC demanded that home computer manufacturers submit samples for radio frequency interference testing. It was found that "first generation" home computers, which often included their own screens, emitted too much radio frequency noise for household use. Some manufacturers appealed to the FCC to waive the requirements for home computers, while other manufacturers (with compliant designs) objected to the waiver. Many manufacturers had to supply an external
RF modulator to allow their units to connect to a home television receiver. Eventually techniques to
suppress interference became standardized.
"The Home Computer Revolution"
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, from about 1977 to 1983, it was widely predicted that computers would soon revolutionize many aspects of home and family life as they'd business practices in the previous decades. Mothers would keep their recipe catalog in
"kitchen computer" databases and turn to a medical database for help with child care, fathers would use the family's computer to manage family finances and track automobile maintenance (note the
gender roles). Children would use disk-based encyclopedias for school work and would be avid
video gamers.
Home automation would bring about the
intelligent home of the '80s. Using some sort of computer technology,
television would be interactive. Morning
coffee would be brewed automatically under computer control. The same computer would control the house lighting and temperature.
Robots would take the garbage out, and be programmable to perform new tasks by the home computer. Electronics were expensive, so it was generally thought that each home would have one computer for the entire family to use, with interfaces to the various devices it was expected to control.
All this was predicted to be commonplace sometime before the end of the decade, but virtually every aspect of the predicted revolution would prove not to be or be delayed. The computers available to consumers of the time period just weren't powerful enough to perform any single task required to realize this vision, much less do them all simultaneously. The home computers of the early 1980s couldn't multitask. Even if they could, memory capacities were too small to hold entire databases or financial records, floppy disk-based storage was inadequate in both capacity and speed for multimedia work, and the graphics of the systems could only display blocky, unrealistic images and blurry, jagged text. Before long, a backlash set in—computer users were "
geeks", "
nerds" or worse, "
hackers". The
North American video game crash of 1983 soured many on home computer technology. The computers that were purchased for use in the family room were either forgotten in closets or relegated to basements and children's bedrooms to be used exclusively for games and the occasional
book report.
It took another 10 years for technology to mature, for the
graphical user interface to make the computer approachable for non-technical users, and for the
internet to provide a compelling reason for most people to want a computer in their homes. Predicted aspects of the revolution were left by the wayside or modified in the face of an emerging reality. The cost of electronics dropped precipitously and today many families have a computer for each family member, or a laptop for mom's active lifestyle, a desktop for dad with the kids sharing a computer. Encyclopedias, recipe catalogs and medical databases are kept online and accessed over the
world wide web not stored locally on floppy disks or CD-ROM. Our coffee may be brewed automatically, but the computer is
embedded in the coffee maker, not under external control. As of 2008,
robots are just beginning to make an impact in the home, with
Roomba and
Aibo leading the charge.
This delay wasn't out of keeping with other technologies newly introduced to an unprepared public. Early
motorists were widely derided with the cry of "Get a horse!" until the
automobile was accepted.
Television languished in research labs for decades before regular public broadcasts began. In an example of changing applications for technology, before the invention of
radio, the
telephone was used to distribute opera and news reports, whose subscribers were denounced as "illiterate, blind, bedridden and incurably lazy people". Likewise, the acceptance of computers into daily life today is a product of continuing refinement of both technology and perception.
Use today
As many older computers have become obsolete and in some cases nonfunctional, it has become popular amongst enthusiasts to virtually "recreate" these machines, their environments and popular software titles with
emulation software. One of the more well known emulators is the
Multiple Emulator Super System which can emulate
most of the better known home computers. One system for which
many emulators exist is the
MSX. A more or less complete list of home computer emulators can be found
here. Games for many 8 and 16 bit platforms are becoming available for the
Wii Virtual Console. As of 2008, game consoles are beginning to incorporate most of the most common uses for PCs in the home - all of the current console generation feature web browsers and music playing capability in addition to gaming. The
Xbox 360 also features
instant messaging. Through the web browser component, word processing, email and photo editing is available. Future home computer users may opt for the all-in-one simplicity of a console over a standard PC.
Retrocomputing is gaining in popularity, with many enthusiasts using real Commodore 64 hardware to perform modern tasks such as surfing the web and email. The 64 has also been repackaged as the
C-One and
C64 Direct-to-TV, both designed by
Jeri Ellsworth with modern enhancements
Notable home computers
The list below shows many of the most popular or significant home computers of the late 1970s and of the 1980s. The most popular home computers in the USA up to 1985 were: the
TRS-80 (1977), various models of the
Apple II family (first introduced in 1977), the
Atari 400/800(1979), the
Commodore VIC-20 (1980) and the
Commodore 64 (1982) which is still the highest-selling single model of personal computer ever, with over 17 million produced before production stopped in 1994 - a 12 year run with only minor changes.
Until the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, computers such as the Apple II and TRS 80 also found considerable use in office work.
(For a comprehensive overview of home computers, for example not just the most notable ones given below, see the
List of home computers.)
1970s
Three microcomputers were the prototypes for what would later become the home computer market segment; but when introduced they sold as much to hobbyists and small businesses as to the home.
- June 1977: Apple II (North America) (color graphics, eight expansion slots)
- August 1977: Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 (N. Am.) (first home computer for less than US$600) (used a dedicated monitor for FCC rules compliance).
- December 1977: Commodore PET (N. Am.) (first all-in-one computer: keyboard/screen/tape storage)
The following computers were also typical of the home computer segment:
1979: Atari 400/800 (N. Am.) (first computer with custom chip set and programmable video chip and built-in audio output)
1979: TI-99/4 (first home computer with a 16 bit processor)
1980s
1980: Commodore VIC-20 (N. Am.) (under US$300; first computer in the world to pass the one million sold mark)
1980: TRS-80 Color Computer (N. Am.) (Motorola 6809, optional OS-9 multi-user multi-tasking)
June 1981: Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (based on the less-successful TI-99/4, first to add sprite graphics)
1981: Sinclair ZX81 (Europe) (£49.95 in kit form; £69.95 pre-built) (released as Timex Sinclair 1000 in US in 1982)
1981: BBC Micro (Europe) (premier educational computer in the UK for a decade; advanced BASIC with integrated 6502 machine code assembler; designed with a myriad of I/O ports)
April 1982: Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Europe) (best-selling British home computer; "made" the UK software industry)
August 1982: Dragon 32, became, for a short time, the best-selling home micro in the United Kingdom.
August 1982: Commodore 64 (N. Am.) (best-selling computer model of all time: ~ 17 million sold)
Jan. 1983: Apple IIe (Apple II enhanced. Reduced component count and manufacturing costs enabled high-volume production. The IIe wouldn't be discontinued until 1993.)
Apr. 1984: Apple IIc (Apple II compact. No expansion slots, and built-in mouse port for pseudo-plug and play ease of use. The Apple II most geared to home use, to compliment the Apple IIe's dominant education market share.)
1983: Coleco Adam (one of the few home computers to be sold with an integrated printer; cousin to the ColecoVision game console; one of the first systems to be "orphaned" by its manufacturer, a casualty of the North American video game crash of 1983.)
1983: MSX (Japan) (a computer 'reference design' by ASCII and Microsoft, manufactured by several companies: ~ 5 million sold)
1983: VTech Laser 200 (entry level computer aimed at being the cheapest on market).
1984: Amstrad/Schneider CPC & PCW ranges (Europe) (British std. prior to IBM PC; German sales next to C64)
1985: Atari ST (N. Am.) (first with built-in MIDI interface; also 1MB RAM for less than US$1000; Motorola 68000 processor.)
1985: Commodore 128 (N. Am.) Final, most advanced 8-bit Commodore, retained full 64 compatibility in a complex multi-mode architecture
July 1985: Commodore Amiga (N. Am.) (custom chip set for graphics and sound; multitasking OS with both GUI and CLI interfaces; Motorola 68000 processor.)
1987: Acorn Archimedes (Europe) (based on the powerful Acorn-developed 32-bit ARM microprocessor; most powerful home computer in its class on its debut)
Further Information
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