• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

40 Years Ago

The "appliance computer", or at least in its conceptual form is older than that:

Google "Honeywell H316 Kitchen Computer". Offered in 1969 by Nieman-Marcus, but no evidence that any was ever sold.
 
For the majority of people (literally, based on Apple, Commodore, and Tandy sales figures over the years), the PET is far more important historically than the Apple ][ (or TRS-80).

Until the 'MPC' (not descended from Apple, Commodore, or Tandy) became a thing that most people had in their homes, most people who became computer users got their start with the Vic 20 or Commodore 64, direct descendants of the PET.
 
For the majority of people (literally, based on Apple, Commodore, and Tandy sales figures over the years), the PET is far more important historically than the Apple ][ (or TRS-80).

Until the 'MPC' (not descended from Apple, Commodore, or Tandy) became a thing that most people had in their homes, most people who became computer users got their start with the Vic 20 or Commodore 64, direct descendants of the PET.

That's a pretty bold statement--do you have data to back that up? Color me skeptical.
 
That's a pretty bold statement--do you have data to back that up? Color me skeptical.

Bold?
The way I read it, he's saying two things:
1) Commodore VIC20 and C64 are descendants of the Commodore PET.
2) The VIC20 and C64 were the best-selling computers of their time.
 
I disagree. Popularity does not equate to importance. The C64 sold well because of brutal marketing. In 1977 the Apple II was far more innovative and influential.
 
I disagree. Popularity does not equate to importance. The C64 sold well because of brutal marketing. In 1977 the Apple II was far more innovative and influential.

Depends on what you mean by 'importance'.
I would argue that the C64 was more important because most people actually had and used one.
Apple computers were very esoteric, at least over here. I read about them in magazines, but that's about it. Most of the people who had any computer at all, had a C64 back in the day. I've never actually used an Apple II, did not even know anyone who owned one.
People of my generation generally started out on a C64, and the C64 is a big part of the reason why they went to work in IT.
For me as a demoscener, the C64 has another very important aspect: the very lively world of piracy (made possible by the computer being so affordable and omnipresent) spawned crack intros, which later evolved into the demoscene as we still know it today (and the C64 is still among the most popular platforms, with still many active groups releasing dozens of productions on C64 every year).
And the demoscene in turn spawned many game developers and a number of game studios. How's that for influence?

Apple may have paved the way for microcomputers originally, but Commodore had a formula that really brought it into the hands of the masses.
Apple could never have spawned something like the demoscene. Their machines were too expensive, limiting them to an 'elite' audience only.
There was no demoscene on early PCs for the same reasons: most people couldn't afford the machines, and their capabilities for audio and video weren't that great compared to a C64.
PCs only came into play when prices dropped in the early 90s, and their audio and video capabilities improved.
 
Well this thread is not about C64s, which owed more to Apple and Atari than to the PET anyway. But PET was one of the first, so kudos to Commodore for that.
 
It's a tough call--and influenced by geography and other factors.

Where I lived, Apple IIs abounded in schools--you almost never saw anything else. I recall pallet-loads of them being piled up for disposal. The same children who used them often had one at home. I had no neighbors or acquaintances with Commodore gear (well, one guy had a watch, and a friend had a calculator she designed for them). And I passed by Commodore's building in Santa Clara every weekday. A lot of those Commodores sold were VIC-20s, which I suspect never held interest for long--I can remember seeing piles of them at one of the local surplus stores for $5 each.
 
I went to a small private school. We had Apple ][s and ][+s. All the public schools anywhere around there all had PETs, and much to my surprise in later years they had boatloads of Commodore 64s.

The advantage the Apple ][ had was the slot snobbery. At the time, I thought, like everyone else, that those expansion slots were all the rage. But in retrospect, I never once saw anything fitted to an Apple slot that couldn't be easily connected to any of the Commodore 8 bits some other, usually easier, way.

Anyway, per my original statement, I think it's a pretty well established fact that more C64s were sold than every model of Apple ][ together. The biggest difference between a C64 and the PET, is the name. I think there are less technical differences between the C64 and PET than the Apple ][ and ][e, which no one disputes was fully an Apple ][.

The biggest reason why the Apple ][ is celebrated today is Steve Jobs. No one even thinks of Steve Wozniak. No one even knows who Jack Tramiel was, and I think he was a bigger influence on personal computers than Jobs. But Jack didn't have the feel good underdog story. Quite the opposite, actually.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's very important to remember the Apple ][ and its influence. But let's not forget the others. Heck, the TRS-80 was no slouch either. But Tandy was even more inept than Commodore after Jack. So the TRS-80 gets almost as overlooked as the TI-99/4.
 
Who knows what people celebrate Apple for today? But I can't say that I ran into a school district around here back in the day that used C64s. You have to also remember that Apple was very aggressive in marketing to education, which accounts for much of the placement.
 
On Sunday at the VCF East I will be moderating a panel discussion about the appliance computers PET, Apple II, TRS 80 model 1. April 1st I believe.
 
Sounds like a fun panel. Best of luck. Just remember in 1977 it was TRS-80, not Model I (just as it was Star Wars, not Episode IV nor A New Hope).
 
Heck, the TRS-80 was no slouch either. But Tandy was even more inept than Commodore after Jack.

Were they sold through other companies than Radio Shack? Here in Europe I've never seen a TRS-80 (I did actually know someone who had a TI-99/4A, although we had no idea what it was).
We didn't have Radio Shack here. Perhaps Tandy didn't really market in Europe.
Apple didn't either. No Apple II in schools here. Mostly C64. Not sure if that was because of Commodore actively pursuing educational computing in Europe (I know they had educational versions of the PET, but PETs were rarely seen here), or if it was just because the C64 was cheap enough for schools to afford them by the truckload.

For me, growing up, VIC-20, C64, ZX Spectrum, Atari 8-bit and the various MSX computers were computers I'd actually encounter, with the C64 eclipsing the rest by far. The others, I knew one or two people who had one. Some of them even replaced theirs with a C64 eventually, since that was the only computer that 'everyone' seemed to have, so it was easy and fun to swap software. When we moved to the 16-bit era, the Amiga more or less took over that role, with the Atari ST in second place, but never quite as ubiquitous as the C64 was. Later the PC clones took over that role.
 
I don't think there were Radio Schack stores in Europe. But as far as I know there were Tandy stores (we even still have a few round here). I've no idea how prevalent they were, nor if they even sold computers at them.
 
I don't think there were Radio Schack stores in Europe. But as far as I know there were Tandy stores (we even still have a few round here).

Yep, I definitely remember Tandy stores in the UK.

Thing is, most all of the schools used the BBC Micro and its variants (such as the Acorn Electron) rather than the C64 or the TRS-80. Before that it was Commodore PETs, though you did sometimes see oddball CPM systems, like the RML 380Z.
 
Thing is, most all of the schools used the BBC Micro and its variants (such as the Acorn Electron) rather than the C64 or the TRS-80. Before that it was Commodore PETs, though you did sometimes see oddball CPM systems, like the RML 380Z.

Yes, I suppose in various European countries it was like that... In Sweden they had the ABC 80, and in Finland there was the MikroMikko.
But Apple II? Don't think it was popular anywhere in Europe.

I don't think initiatives such as the BBC Micro really worked. Yes, they were popular in school, and many Brits are familiar with them.
But if I look at the British software industry, I think in the early 80s, it was mainly homebrew software on the C64 and ZX Spectrum, which turned into a booming gaming industry.
 
There must have been Tandy stores in Europe - a friend had (and still has) a TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo 1). Bought in Norway.
I never used or even touched a Commodore computer. We had an Apple II (and several clones) at work though, in the section that produced instrumentation setups for research etc. The aforementioned Apple II slots were essential. We made various I/O boards for the Apple II.
The AIM-65 could also be used for data capturing, so we had a few of those as well.
 
You could have made I/O boards for the PET/Vic-20/C64/B128/etc as well. In fact, Commodore did most of the work for you; there's spare I/O already there just for that reason. It's called the User Port, one of my favourite features of the Commodore 8bits.

Incidentally, most people think that the User Port is limited to 8 I/O lines. Really, there's no limit. The shift register can accomodate literally infinite I/O.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top