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Hardware

Top 10 Personal Computers, Revised 296

Posted by michael from the de-gustibus-non-est-disputandum dept.
rebelcool writes "Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle has revised his Top 10 PCs of all time, mainly as a result of this Slashdot story. He addresses many of the replies written to him wondering why X system wasn't on the list in Y position, but also chose to replace the Apple Newton with the Amiga A1000."
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Top 10 Personal Computers, Revised More

Top 10 Personal Computers, Revised

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  • What? How could he forget (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wigfield ( 730339 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:01PM (#7650059) Journal
    AOL's $299 PC? [slashdot.org]

    The bigot!

  • Classic Computers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xeno_gearz ( 533872 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:02PM (#7650068) Journal
    The Commodore 64 was fantastic when I first ran across it. It was the first computer that I recall any of my friends having. Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't think of buying a computer at the time (and I couldn't afford one being somewhere about 10 and all). I often would go to a friend's house and play on his family's computer and play games like Zork.

    Unfortunately, it never went much further than that. However, the inclusion of the Apple Macintosh in our school computer labs was a huge influence as that is when I first recall seeing a GUI like that.

    For those reasons, those computers will always remain classics for me and are definitely part of my top ten.

  • Powerful Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:02PM (#7650070) Homepage Journal
    Goes to show that united geeks carry weight.

  • where did he get the idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:03PM (#7650073)
    that slashdot readers are a "linux advocacy" community?????

  • I think the problem here is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:04PM (#7650078) Journal
    ...trying to pigeonhole only a 'top 10'. Top 10 WHAT? It would be easy to ignore the contributions of 8-bit computers nowadays, but at one time there weren't many other options and each type had a specific advantage.

    Hint to the writer: If you're going to do a list like this, try and be more specific.

    • "...had the biggest impact on the way people use computers in their homes today"

      Pretty specific to me. I'm sure you just missed it while you where reading the article...
      • Yes, I RTFA just fine thanks. That still doesn't meet my criteria - it's not near specific enough.

        Did 300 baud modems connected to Compuserve in 1983 make a VAST difference in the household use of computers? Undoubtedly. Is it fair to compare it to the dot-com boom years of the Internet's privatization - no way!

        Did the Amiga change the way a lot of people thought about multimedia? Well, yes, for those who saw it at the time. Many who did nonetheless compared it to a game machine - but who would even THINK

  • Macintosh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Isopropyl ( 730365 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:05PM (#7650087)
    Mr. Silverman seems very obliging, revising his original list to conform to certain external demands. The one question I have is why he didn't acknowledge his own poll (the one on the original top 10 page)? The largest number (34%) cleary chose the Apple Macintosh over every other computer, with a couple recieve close to no votes at all (0-1%)! I don't use a Macintosh, but if so many people feel that way, shouldn't Mr. Silverman think about it?

    • Re:Macintosh? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:21PM (#7650185)
      Probably because internet polls, generally, are only slightly more accurate than using the (RAND) function. If he ignored the option, that suggests he had reason to believe the poll was spoofed in some way. And for that matter, so do I. 10% I'd believe. 20% would be stretching things, but I'd accept it. But over 1/3 of respondants, when Apple only has something like 5% of the overall market? Something was going on.

      • Re:Macintosh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by justMichael ( 606509 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:59PM (#7650389) Homepage
        While I completely agree with you.

        Maybe it's possible that many people voted for the Mac even though they do not own one? I know I have seen many people here and in person that would be happy to own an Apple if the perceived* cost wasn't so high.

        On the other hand, I can easily see a hand full of zealots inflating the numbers.

        *perceived because most people only look at the initial cost and don't factor in the fact that there are many people using 5+ year old Macs on a daily basis.
      • Just because Apple only has X market share doesn't mean Y number of people have to like it. In fact the poll was not even a question of wheter or not a person liked or used a machine, it was about the impact it had.

      • Re:Macintosh? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Lars T. ( 470328 ) <Lars.TraegerNO@SPAMgooglemail.com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:15PM (#7650783) Journal
        Oh yeah, that argument again. "I stuffed the ballot, but the Mac still won. Maccies simply must have cheated. " Those 5% must be really clever hackers.

  • Hasn't he learned (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fine09 ( 630812 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:05PM (#7650088)
    The cycle continues.

    He will just get more emails now from the same people wondering why he didn't put machine x in frount of computer y.

    It is impossible to make a top 10 list that will make everyone happy, but it is cool that he took other peoples ideas to value and re-did this list to accomidate information that he learned in the process

    • fine09 wrote

      He will just get more emails now from the same people wondering why he didn't put machine x in frount of computer y.

      If I were a cynical person I'd guess that, based on the number of page views that they got, he updated his list again in order to help increase the Houston Chronicle's web page ad impressions.

      Hrm... something to think about...

      Eugene

  • Lets slashdot him again... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:08PM (#7650106) Homepage Journal
    ...just to make sure he never makes the same mistake again, that'll teach him!

  • iMac (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:13PM (#7650128)
    I'm not sure on what basis top 10 were chosen but I feel the iMac should be a definate candidate. Not only did it revitalize a company struggling at the time (Apple) but it's the first computer I can think of that was considered by the general public to be cool looking and since the iMac showed it could be done computers have really become alot more stylish in appearance (whether for good or evil). I feel that for its popularity and effect on the modern computer industry the iMac deserves a spot.

    • Re:iMac (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Clever Pun ( 729719 )
      I'd have to agree. The iMac had influence even beyond the field of computers - at the Target store I work at (general merchandise retailer, for you non-Americans :), we sell colored irons, grills, glasses, and everything else you can think of.

      The iMac also helped to jumpstart the USB industry by only having USB ports - thus creating demand for USB floppy drives (which had the biggest demand by a HUGE margin), printers, keyboards, mice, and joysticks.

    • Re:iMac (Score:4, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:19PM (#7650170) Homepage Journal
      The iMac is just the Apple Macintosh (the original doorstop models) of the modern age. The Macintosh's styling was groundbreaking at the time as well, it almost looks like someone carved it out of a block of clay with a big knife, and they had a limit of fifteen cuts or so. Apple was also the first to bring out home computers that snapped apart with only a couple of screws, like the whole Mac II line. They were definitely at the forefront of trends which are now commonplace in desktop computing.

      Unfortunately, memory protection wasn't one of these things...

      • Re:iMac (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sugar and acid ( 88555 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:59PM (#7650396)
        Except one thing, iMacs broke the beige barrier.

        Before iMac the colour choice for your computer was along the line of, beige, off white or ivory (ie all shades of beige). iMac comes along, and all of a sudden you can buy a personal computer that isn't beige. All major PC manufactures have almost stop making beige computers (though now the new beige is black).

        The iMac showed people wanted good looking computers on there desk, and for many people the computer is just like a couch or a table or even a toaster, where the purchase decision is based on both practicality and asthetics.

        • Re:iMac (Score:5, Funny)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:13PM (#7650464) Homepage Journal
          That's bullshit. iMacs broke the translucent barrier. There were black, silver, white, grey, and beige systems being sold before.

          If anything the iMac brought us into the rice boy age of computing, with EM-inducing cold cathods, non-EM-blocking windowed cases... Hey mang, I'm gonna put shorter stick-on rubber feet on my PC... lowering kit! Or you could use a file on the existing ones, that's equivalent to cutting your springs.

          You seem to suggest that we should all be grateful for the iMac making it possible for us to order computers in a specific color, but all it's really done is that PC manufacturers are now mostly making black cases, which they should have done a long time ago. The demand was clearly there. (Gateway should make cow-spotted cases, too. I've lost track of the number of people I know who've said they'd buy a gateway if they did.)

          The Macintosh showed that people wanted good looking computers on their desk, down to the appearance of the OS itself. The iMac only proved the point.

        • Re:iMac (Score:3, Funny)

          by Kenja ( 541830 )
          So the SGI systems I had before the iMac where beige and not the purple, teal, red and black that they looked like? How about the old 286 I had with a transparent plastic case, was that beige? Hell, how about the ACER PCs that where purple and black, where those beige as well? Seems that exposure to Apple computers makes you color blind.

    • Re:iMac (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:27PM (#7650230)
      The problem with the iMac is that while it may have helped Apple, that doesn't add anything (or take anything away) from the technology aspect of it. As it stands, the only thing remarkable from a computing perspective about the iMac was its all-in-one design, and even more so the decision to not include a floppy drive.

      The all-in-one aspect has been done ad nauseum since the dawn of personal computing -- everything Mac until the II, the Kaypro, and many others I'm probably forgetting, and omitting the floppy seems less important now than it did at the time.

      I think what would have been a really revolutionary computer would have been a Macintosh SE/30 with a color display. The SE/30 was one of my all-time faves; internal HDD, 68030 CPU (although slightly hobbled with a 16 bit data path), and highly portable. Until the Powerbook line, it was Apple's best portable computer.

      I'd love to see an SE/30 modded with a hi-res LCD color display. I dunno if the ROMs supported color or not, but that would have been sweet in 1990.
      • Yes I remember reading that you could put different roms in the SE/30 to add color support even though the video on board did not use it. Also IIRC there were color video cards that could run an external monitor.

        • Re:iMac (Score:2, Informative)

          by IM6100 ( 692796 )
          Unfortunately you have to choose between putting a Color display card or an ethernet card in an SE/30. And the whole notion of attaching an external monitor to an SE/30 just seems unclean to me. I snap in the power cord, ADB cord, ethernet cord and it's all set up.
      • You would probably be better off doing a mini-itx hack. There would be enough room in the case to use a full size ATX power supply, and most importantly, a low-power mini-itx system will eliminate the need for a cooling fan. (Many old macs which didn't have one really did need one, especially with a hard drive in the box.) I'm not sure how you would best get video onto it, though. If you used a biscuit PC from advantech (or similar) then it would have LCD control onboard. Then your motherboard and display t
    • Well the iMac is an innovative product but not not that innovative. It is generally a Mac in a dumb terminal case. Sure it was cute and it made a lot of money. But they had all in one systems before (like the original Mac).

  • What is a computer anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by filtersweep ( 415712 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:13PM (#7650133) Homepage Journal
    Is it the hardware or the OS... or both?
  • For my 2 bit computer to make the list...
  • Woohooo! :-)

  • Apple newton (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nuggz ( 69912 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:20PM (#7650180) Homepage
    I don't like apple in general.
    I find their computers annoying, and hard to use, mostly unfamiliarity, and that the UI isn't very intuitive to me.

    But I really disagree with removing the Newton, that was an amazing piece of hardware, the first time I saw it, I was blown away, and it was already a few years old by then.
    I saw it, played with it, and thought "this is where computers are going for the public".

    I really think it was a landmark in computer history, it was just too recent for people to note the effect.

    • Re:Apple newton (Score:3, Informative)

      by Clever Pun ( 729719 )
      I used to have my Dad's old Newton (I've since passed it down to my younger brother), and I have to say I agree. It's got sound output, incredible handwriting recognition software (NOT Graffiti, either), an infrared transender, and a lot of other nifty features that it took the rest of the computing world how many more years? to come out with. Bravo.

    • Re:Apple newton (Score:4, Informative)

      by LordKazan ( 558383 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:45PM (#7650320) Homepage Journal
      You know what's funny about the Apple Newton, the guy that was one of the leading software developers for it (Steve Strong) went back to teaching computer science and math in high school after they eliminated the project and downsized.

      I was truely blessed to have him as a professor. I generally dislike mac (now only because it's properitary hardware, OS/X is a very nice operating system). The newton didn't fail because of lack of ingeniuity, or bad coding. It was groundbreaking, and had insanely good programmers.

      It was a device before it's time.
      If you were to make a list of devices influential to hand-held computing the newton would be undeniably #1

    • Re:Apple newton (Score:4, Interesting)

      by EinarH ( 583836 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:50PM (#7650339) Journal
      Apple Newton - nice idea, bad implementation.
      Palm Pilot - same idea (copied), nice implementation.
      • > Apple Newton - nice idea, bad implementation.
        > Palm Pilot - same idea (copied), nice implementation.

        I laughed my ass off when I read this. Funniest thing on Slashdot in a long, long time.

        Thanks.

      • Re:Apple newton (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Imperator ( 17614 )
        The Palm Pilot wasn't truly a copy of the Newton, nor was it an improvement. It was a step down. The Newton was Apple's typical Icarus approach: it accepted human handwriting anywhere on the screen and tried to convert that to text. Some people had success with it, but in any case it became a target of ridicule for the mistakes it made in recognition. Palm attempted less and thus succeeded more: the Pilot accepted input only in a dedicated area of the screen, and only in a specific stylized form (Graffiti).

    • Re:Apple newton (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Psykechan ( 255694 )
      Yep, I second...er.. third this statement. I am not a Mac fan but I did appreciate the Newton.

      When my Newton MP120 passed on to the /dev/null device in the sky, I was forced to replace it. My options were:

      1. Going back to my MP110 which had the earlier 1.3 OS. Good, but I was too used to the newer features.

      2. Fixing it. Very expensive as the few shops that would try wanted an exhorbitant amount just to look at it.

      3. Buying another PDA.

      I eventually chose option 3 and got an iPAQ PocketPC. After usi

    • Re:Apple newton (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mikerich ( 120257 )
      I really think it was a landmark in computer history, it was just too recent for people to note the effect.

      Agree with that, and the Newton did show the way for a new type of computer - the hand-held that you could interact with in a more naturalistic manner - from it comes the Palm, the Pocket PC, the P800...

      Whereas the Amiga's descendents are where? At the end of the day, the Amiga was a brilliant, quirky, fascinating dead end.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

    • I understand how you feel, I had a Newton and it was very cool. That said, I'm glad it was removed from the list, as in my mind it's not a computer, but a PDA. Everything else on the list is a "true computer" in that it's a desktop or laptop, the Newton doesn't fit in the list, IMHO. That was MY complaint about the origional article, so I like the change (and the Amiga does deserve to be on there too).

      Now if it was a list of influential computer devices, then I could see including computers, PDAs, TiVos, e

  • Leading Edge and Wells American (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RevMike ( 632002 ) <revMike@gmail. c o m> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:21PM (#7650190) Journal

    I have two nominees:

    1) Leading Edge Model D This PC was the first important "low cost" PC that was nearly 100% IBM compatible. I remember it having quite a following and marketshare back in the day.

    2) Wells American A*Star This AT class machine came with a full set of schematics for the motherboard. I remember reading Peter Norton's guides about the interaction of the various chips, then following the traces in the schematics. There is no better way to learn "internals" than that.

    • 1) Leading Edge Model D This PC was the first important "low cost" PC that was nearly 100% IBM compatible. I remember it having quite a following and marketshare back in the day.

      My first computer of my own was a Leading Edge Model D. It was given to me by my uncle when he bought a new computer. It still works, too.

  • List looks good now (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Teddy Beartuzzi ( 727169 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:22PM (#7650200) Journal
    List looks pretty accurate to me now. I'm not an Amiga fan, but it was definitely a huge machine. If he wanted the Newton in, he should have chucked the Tandy Sensation, whatever the heck that was. I know every other machine, but not that one.

  • What about ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jonbryce ( 703250 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:25PM (#7650218) Homepage
    The Amstrad 1512?

    In the UK anyway, it was one of the big milestones in computing.

    It was the first affordable x86 machine, running MS DOS and GEM and capable of running Lotus 123 and MS Flight Simulator - the two killer apps of the time.

    The fact that it was available in Dixons meant that the typical non techie person got to see it.

    It was a lot cheaper, and better specced than the typical IBM machine.

    • Re:What about ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:50PM (#7650338) Journal
      The Amstrad 1512?

      In the UK anyway, it was one of the big milestones in computing.

      I hate to say "RTFA," but you should RTFA!

      The author specifically mentions this point, that he writes for a local paper and not some international news source, and thus, OF COURSE his list is North American-centric.

    • Re:What about ... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )
      I had an Amstrad 1512 as my first PC. (well I had an older TI thing before that but it was only for games) And I have very fond memories about it. But the Amstrad made some really big mistakes. Especially in the video area, This is in the time where the CGA Graphics were standard for PCs and EGA is just getting in the door. But except for incorporating the EGA standard it used its own display, which really stunk because it had the ability to do EGA quality graphics but can only support CGA. So most of y

  • It's the Hardware, not the OS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:31PM (#7650255) Homepage
    From that list, it appears he chose based on the hardware itself, and it's popularity, with the OS coming along for the ride. Why else pick the IBM PC 5150 as #2, running DOS? Clearly because it was very popular and helped turn the PC market toward the business world in an unprecedented way.

    The "PCs Limited Turbo"? Yeah, that was another DOS machine, and helped revolutionize the turn toward mail-order PCs. Again, that wasn't about the OS.

    So those people who complained that the Mac should be number 1 because its OS influenced Windows are missing the point. That doesn't seem to have been the focus of this columnist's article. Now if you want to have another article talking about the most influential OSes, well that's entirely different, and I doubt you'd find the "Tandy Sensation" on that list.

    Still, I guess I will make my nits too. If you are going by ubiquity and influence in the marketplace, would you really put the Compaq Portable PC #1? Yeah, it revolutionized portability back when everybody and their uncle's dog were making nothing but desktop PCs. But I would think either the Apple II or the IBM PC would be the truly revolutionary boxes. Those were the boxes that told the world that you could have a computer of your very own, both at home and on your desk at work. That was a true paradigm shift that none of the others matched, IMO.

  • Couple of corrections with comments (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:38PM (#7650299)
    Some of these den't even belong on this list. I don't think adding a little more memory, hard disk, cdrom or sound card makes it on this list.
    10. Osborne I;
    This was the first luggable, dump compaq portable.
    9. PCs Limited Turbo;
    Who is PC limited, just another clone company, sure maybe its Dell, but Compaq and Gateway were there first.
    8. Tandy Sensation;
    Most everyone heard of the TRS-80, but Sensation? All Tandy did was add a CDROM and a sound card. SVGA was already common.
    7. Commodore Amiga A1000;
    Great Addition, the more/less utility to view files looked like a movie title production. And Aming had multitasking too.
    6. Commodore 64;
    5. MITS Altair 8800;
    4. Apple II;
    This should be first, this was the first mass market computer with expandable slots, floppy drive.
    3. Apple Macintosh;
    2. IBM PC 5150;
    1. Compaq Portable PC.
    Where is the first real portable with a LCD? It was the portability but the first clone. But this shouldn't have been so high, if there was Apple, then IBM, there wouldn't be anything to clone. Copycats shouldn't rate so high.

    My list
    1. Apple ][
    2. IBM PC 5150
    3. Compaq PC, this was the first clone which begat th entire clone industry
    4. Apple Macintosh
    5. Apple Newton
    1st handheld
    6. PC Laptop with LCD, very portable!!
    Actually the Apple ][ c had a laptop profile but no LCD screen.
    7. Commodore 64;
    8. Commodore Amiga A1000;
    9. Osborne I;
    10. Tandy TRS-80
    this was used alot in the 80s

    WhatMeWorry
    • 6. PC Laptop with LCD, very portable!! Actually the Apple ][ c had a laptop profile but no LCD screen.
      I think the honor for that one might go to dearly departed Data General and its DG One. [simulogics.com]

  • Early PCs had completely different demographic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:47PM (#7650325)

    I also got several votes for the Texas Instruments 99/4A. These seemed to come largely from people who identified themselves as programmers, which is one reason I didn't put it on the list. It was a bigger influence on the geek community than on Joe & Jane User.


    Mr. Silverman is really mischaracertizing his whole article, and statements such as above explemplify the distance between his knowledge and experience and the reality of the early computer industry.

    In the early days, people purchased computers to "program" them. Part of the fun was taking a machine and teaching it to do new things. He should more-aptly rename his list to the, "Top 10 computer-controlled consumer devices of all time" because there is a difference.

    Again, not listing the TRS-80 on the list is gross negligence. The TRS-80 was the most popular computer in the world for many more years than most of the other computer models were even around. Even if one panders to Mr. Silverman's goofball rationale of ignoring computers seemingly built for "nerds", more people used TRS-80s for business applications than Apple in most of the early years.

    And what the hell is the MITS Altair doing on the list then? Make up your mind. Either you're going to give props to the computers that were most influential, or the ones who ran the most ads in Byte magazine that 7 people in Virginia actually purchased (namely the Tandy Sensation - a computer I still haven't ever seen even though I owned every other computer on his list, as well as dozens of others). But make up your mind. Your list isn't either.

    It's amazing. I didn't think he could take his suck-ass list and make it even worse, but he did. If anything, this proves that dorks like this are yanking the chain of the tech community and laughing as they bask in their 15 minutes of attention.

  • My List (Score:2, Redundant)

    by kahei ( 466208 )
    I must say the original article's list strikes me as very much the view of someone who doesn't particularly like or use computers, but I guess it's all a matter of opinion. Here's what I think of as a more middle-of-the-road list (in no order):

    ZX81
    Commodore 64
    TRS-80
    Amiga A500
    BBC Model B (I hated it but it was undeniably of huge importance in the uk)
    Atari 800
    Heathkit computer
    Apple II
    Palmpilot ...er...

    Sony Vaio series, symbols of the commoditization and appliance-ization of the PC.
    • The author of the original article list seemed to have categorised the computers according to the level of application usage.

      Some of these computers were really more suited to learning programming and computers than to do serious applications. How many computers could display 80 column text without requiring special drivers to be installed?

      It would be interesting to have separate categories for 'learning technology', 'writing/playing games', 'business applications' than a single list.

      The ZX81 [old-computers.com] and

  • No speccy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plumby ( 179557 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:48PM (#7650332)
    I can't believe there's no Sinclair Spectrum in there. I think it's pretty much responsible for the current UK IT industry. Most developers that I know around my age (mid 30's) in the UK learned to program on it.

  • There oughta be a /. poll... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jejones ( 115979 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:50PM (#7650342) Journal
    ...asking "Have you ever heard of the Tandy Sensation?" Goodness knows I never had, until I saw this fellow's first article, and as a CoCo user, I was fairly attentive to what Radio Shack sold up until early 1991 when they finally stopped selling the CoCo3 and went totally over to the Dark Side. Sounds like it was just another (insert favorite expletive) PClone.

    • Yes, I've heard of it. And, by and large it was just another PC Clone. The best that could be said for it is that it was a harbinger of the drive to make cheap, turnkey home computers that were still full-featured. For what it was, it was a fine machine, but nothing anyone would have danced in the streets over--and as I recall, nothing anyone really raced to buy, which explains why so many other people here are going "The Tandy What?"

      If I was going to put any of Radio Shack's machines for this list, the T

  • what!? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bsDaemon ( 87307 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:51PM (#7650349)
    no iBook!? how can this be?? Steve said it was insanely great!! he wouldn't lie!, would he?

  • Amiga Placement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by retsamxaw ( 64491 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:54PM (#7650367) Homepage

    Although everyone can't ever be 100% satisfied with their own list - much less someone else's, it's good to see the Amiga got its appropriate level of respect.

    Much more than Mac zealots, Amiga users have continued to utilize their 10-15 year old Amigas for things that matter in our modern world.

    Sure, you can play text based games, use ssh/telnet, and "word process" on nearly any PC in existance, but old Amigas can (and still are) utilized for video work.

    While I think the Newton deserved a spot in the historical review, the Amiga is truly - like the Mac - one of the forebearers of our modern Gnome, KDE, Mac OS X, and WinXP computing environments:

    • pre-emptive multitasking
    • CLI/GUI mix
    • true-color graphics
    • stereo sound
    • co-processing
    • animation

      The Amiga was the more deserving of the two.

      I think that's a very "fair and balanced" list (I'd take off the Tandy and replace it with the Newton or the original Graffiti Palm). The reason Amiga zealots persist is only due to it not receiving its historical recognition. This article will go along way to making them feel validated. I feel that Mac OS X shares much in spirit with the original Amiga, and I have long since switched to the new keeper of the flame - on the desktop. Linux and FreeBSD will (forever?) remain the server favorites.

    • I agree with your assessment of Amiga being a predecessor to modern environments. Even with it's closed OS, it was still far more "Hackable" than anything else on the consumer market at the time. Add rock-solid applications, and you have a fantastic machine.

      I still have all my old 720k Amiga floppies full of some of the greatest games. I've still never found an RTS with the gameplay of Air Support on ANY system.

  • United States but was big in England. And, I was surprised no one protested that I hadn't mentioned France's MiniTel, a device that was part of one of the first public computer networks, presaging the Internet.


    I believe the MiniTel was setup in the late 70s, which of course IS long before Microsoft invented the internet with the introduction of Windows 95....

  • taking the bait: comments on "the list" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:14PM (#7650478)
    I know the whole article is a troll, but I can't resist commenting anyway:

    10. Osborne I

    No big deal. Not worthy of the list. It was neither the first portable (which was the IBM 5100) nor the best-selling. It has the distinction of being the goofiest portable with the most ridiculously-small display ever. The Kaypro II was more of a milestone, more useable and more practical and more widely available.

    9. PCs Limited Turbo

    If we're going to call attention to clone manufacturers, then Compaq should be here. And Compaq's 386 was the first 80386-based PC on the market. PC's limited was just one of the many clone manufacturers who's main distinction was that they didn't end up going out of business early on.

    8. Tandy Sensation

    It seems me and almost everyone else on the planet don't know what this computer is doing here. I have to assume Mr. Silverman has a warehouse full of these doorstops he's trying to inflate the value of.

    7. Commodore Amiga A1000

    Worthy of being on the list, mainly because, like many Apple models, what it lacked in large-scale consumer acceptance, it made up for in loyalty and user satisfaction. Computers like the Amiga (Apple Lisa, NeXT, Tandy 1000, etc.), if more widely accepted, might have set the industry in a different direction.

    6. Commodore 64

    Worthy of the list as well. This PC was many peoples' first introduction to the PC world.

    5. MITS Altair 8800

    No list would be complete without this computer, but the company with which it's included is inconsistent with whatever point Mr. Silverman is
    trying to make (beyond getting attention by inciting the tech community with his ignorance).

    4. Apple II; 3. Apple Macintosh; 2. IBM PC 5150;

    All worthy.

    1. Compaq Portable PC.

    This might be a worthy addition to the list, but not as the top spot and not at the expense of listing many more important computers, specifically the TRS-80 (Models I and III), or many of Tandy's innovations in this field including the Pocket Computer, PC100 (Kyocera), and Color Computer. Many people have listed a lot of early clones, such as the Leading Edge. And IBM's XT was also a pioneer in taking computing to the next level with its 10MB hard drive. As for portables, the Compaq Portable III was more "important" and truly more portable than the monster that was the Model I.
  • Dwight Silverman is right! The A1000 rulez! It is the oldest of my machines still running.

    Marble Madness still gets some play time! ;) I used to send stuff to and use stuff fro FredFish before I even heard of GPL and FSF.

    Thanks for remembeing this great machine...
  • ...will always be the machines I build with my own two fsck'in hands!

  • damn... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mgcsinc ( 681597 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:34PM (#7650558)
    I bet the dewey beats truman guy wished he could go back and change the news like this!
  • I posted about his original list here on /. when it was first mentioned here. By tacking on the Amiga he really hasn't fixed a thing, and he hasn't adequately addressed any of the substantial complaints made the first time around.

    For starters, the Tandy Sensation doesn't belong on *anybody's* list. CD-ROM drives and "multimedia" abilities were already commonplace on the Macs by the time Tandy slapped together their Sensation. Being the first major manufacturer to do in the clone market what Apple had al

  • Ahhh, so many memories... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wheaty18 ( 465429 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:45PM (#7650609)
    I remember playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago?" on my friends' Apple II at the tender age of 10, we had a blast and learned (gasp) something at the same time.

    Not to be topped by the first time I played Doom, however... ;)
  • If you're old enough to argue about these computers, you're old enough to remember David Ahl's books BASIC Computer Games [atariarchives.org] and More BASIC Computer Games [atariarchives.org]. Both are available on the Web, as of today.

  • What a wuss.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:11PM (#7650760)
    So he writes an article ... gets a bunch of pseudo-hate-mail from people that disagree, then goes back and "fixes" his list?

    If my "system of choice" had made the original list ... would I haved bothered emailing him to say "jolly good job chap ... you've selected my favorite CPU". Nope. Not that I'd write him and complain if my machine of choice hadn't made the list either, but apparently some people did.

    My point is that simply changing a list because he wants to address the concerns of those that had a reason to voice their disagreement doesn't seem like the right way to go about it. Sure, he'll bring more traffic to the site and to his column in particular. Who wouldn't want to single-handedly be responsible for that not once, but twice ... especially as the end of the year, and bonus time, approaches? But if he's going to bend to the wishes of some nerds with an email account, maybe he should've taken the time to do a more thorough research job in the first place instead of congratulating himself for bringing more traffic to the site. All of that original traffic was coming to read a list that I guess was wrong. Way to go Dwight!
  • In the spirit of things, I've compiled my own list of the Top 10 most amusing entries from the top 10 most "important" lists from Houston Chronicle writer, Dwight Silverman:

    10. Most important places to live: #1. "Houston"
    09. Most important Teletubby: #8. "Winky"
    08. Most important color: #3. "Burnt Sienna"
    07. Most important bathroom toiletry: #1. "Air Freshener"
    06. Most important sea creature: #2. "Frog"
    05. Most important car: #6. "AMC Pacer"
    04. Most important medical treatment: #3. "Botox"
    03. Most

  • ... and it resulted in dozens of nonlocal comments and e-mails.

    ... Several readers from Europe -- who apparently missed the fact that the column was written for a general interest newspaper in Houston, Texas, USA -- complained my list had a "North American" bias.

    Could you define nonlocal please? You're posting copy on a website viewable by the public internet. Is the internet nonlocal to you? Or is this just another Texas-is-the-center-of-the-planet things?

  • A1000 (Score:2)

    by POds ( 241854 )
    I may be alittle bias, but i may not since i dont use Amiga's, but i did.

    I did find it a little strange that the Amiga 1000 didnt make it into the 10 initially, how could someone over look this?

    That machine was head and sholders above anything for its time and we can thank it today because it brought multimedia to us. It WAS the first multimieda computer, although it was mainly for games, the machine came with a powerful operating system that even today i still inuse by thousands of people. Thats no joke!

  • Compaq in Houston (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SaAnHoUs ( 730442 )
    Compaq was founded and is headquarted in Houston. Coincidence or Conspiracy? http://h18020.www1.hp.com/corporate/history.html

  • Early Amigaian (Score:4, Informative)

    by POds ( 241854 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @09:59PM (#7651510) Homepage Journal
    To my knowledge, the A1000 was created by Jay Minor, who i believe has "passed on" now. For give me if im wrong :). He worked at Atari and possibly lead the development of several of their chipsets. Jay wanted to create something astonishing, something to blow the computer world away. For some reason or another, Atari didnt want to. So Jay quite and moved to his back shed where he worked on the Amiga. You can still find pictures where each chip was built out of several bread boards... Interesting stuff!

    Anyway, eventualy commador bought the Amiga design and hired Jay, Made everyone involved famous and rich and then killed them Amiga less than 10 years later :)

    Heres a nice, show report? and some technical details about the first Amiga or as it was code named, "lorraine".

    http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n4/150_A miga_Lorraine_finally_.php [atarimagazines.com]

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