Computing
Microsoft Computing in the 80’s
Believe it or not (depending how old you are will bring back memories), but Microsoft Windows started it’s life in the 80’s.
In November of 1983, Bill Gates showed IBM his new operating system, Windows. It went down like a lead balloon, but Bill realised that a proper GUI based operating system would be the way of the future.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985. It wasn’t a complete operating system like today as it was an extension of MS-DOS (which was released in 1981), the ‘command line’ or text based operating system.
From 1985, the selling details were as follows:
Price: $99
Hardware Requirements: 80386 CPU, 256KB RAM, 1MB Storage
Media Size: five 360KB 5.25″ floppy disks
The Commodore 64
‘The’ Computer of the 80’s was the Commodore 64 – the best thing since sliced bread. Released in August 1982, the C64 took the world by storm, and is even popular today amongst the cultist computer nerds.
Yeah it looks ugly, but this 8 bit (yes that’s right) computer was capable of so many things. Essentially it was a gaming computer, but there were are few non gaming titles released.
When it was first released, games came out on cassette tape, and load times were horrendous by today’s standards, Then, as the C64 became more popular, the 1541 floppy disk drive was more affordable. According to Wikipedia, over 10000 titles were released for the C64. The computer had advanced graphics and sound (for the time), and the limits of the processor was pushed by many a software writer.
Commodore Business Machines also brought out the SX-64 – a portable(?) version of the C64. It was a very heavy machine, but boasted a built in 5 inch monitor.
Here is a youtube video of the TV ad, aired in Australia, to promote the C64 (which I remember very well):
The C64 is still very popular, with an abundance of information out there on the net. Just Google it and see how many matches you get ….