Here’s No 7 - No 2. (Data Source: PC World)No. 7 – Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)
The Amiga was the world’s first multimedia and multitasking PC. At a cost of USD$1,500, it came with Motorola 68000 CPU and three co-processors. Those co-processors helped provide the graphics and sound for the Amiga. Its main video processor allowed 3D animation processing, full-motion video and TV processing, and its four-voice sound chip provided speech synthesis. By the way, Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994.
No. 6 – IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150 (1981)
And who are we celebrating for? This guy!! It was born on 12 August 1981 and that day was a great milestone in the history of the computer industry. It used Intel’s 8088 16-bit CPU in an era where most popular models still used basic 8-bit processors. IBM offered this system with several operating systems, including the P-System and PC-DOS.
No. 5 – IBM ThinkPad 700C (1992)
You may know better than me how popular the ThinkPad is. The 700C was one of the first models in the ThinkPad range. Some of its features still exist in today’s models - such as the distinctive black case and its red TrackPoint pointing device. The USD$4,350 ThinkPad 700C came with a 256-colour, 10.4” TFT VGA screen (very large at that time), a removable 120MB hard disk and a 25-MHz 486SLC processor. Want to see what today’s ThinkPads look like? Visit www.mylenovo.co.nz for all current models. Just a point to note in case you didn’t know – the IBM ThinkPad’s are now manufactured by Lenovo.
No. 4 – Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)
This is the longest-selling Mac model ever – it stayed on the market until 1990. The USD$2,599 Mac Plus had the Motorola 68000 CPU and came with MB of RAM and was upgradeable to 4MB. It supported the brand-new 800KB double-sided floppy-disk and was the first Mac with a SCSI port. Its cute beige all-in-one case housed a mono display and a 3.5-inch floppy drive. Today, you can buy a working Mac Plus on eBay for about USD$25 – but then it would cost you quite a bit more to ship it to New Zealand.
No.3 – Xerox 8010 Information System (1981)
This Xerox 8010 was announced in 1981 and shipped in 1982. It used a mouse which was an unfamiliar piece of equipment at that time. It also had built-in Ethernet networking, and could work with 12-ppm laser printers, which was ¾ the size of a washing machine. Yet another evolution in computer history. How much did it cost? Only USD$16,500.
No.2 Compaq Deskpro 386 (1986)
I can remember my first computer was a 286 with B&W monitor with no hard drive. The thought of having a 386 was my dream at that time. The Compaq Deskpro 386 was the first computer using Intel’s 32-bit powerful 80386 CPU (before IBM). Its starting price was USD$6,499.
Do you want to know who No 1 is? Come back tomorrow and all will be revealed!!
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