-
Heath
The Heath Desktop was one of the first computers designed as complete desktop machines including monitor, floppy disks and keyboard. Heath made a full line of computers and was later bought by Zenith. Heath kit designs were made simple and broken down into small steps. -
M6800 Computer kit
The South West Technical Products Company used the Motorola 6800 processor. It was much less expensive than the S-100 bus computers. The software for the M6800 was excellent -
MITS Altair
It was the first 8080 based kit microcomputer. The reaction to the Altair was un-expected. It was the start of the microcomputer industry. -
Imsai 8080
It was designed to use the same bus structure as the Altair 8800 with interchangeable circuit boards. It was better built though. It supplanted the Altair A model as the standard S-100 Bus computer -
The SOL-First 8080 Desktop
The Processor Technology company designed and sold a full line of boards for the S-100 computers. The SOL had a video terminal built-in. The SOL became a very popular computer that influenced the design of future computers. -
Apple II
The Apple II was the first true"personal computer". It was in-expensive and easy to learn and use. The Apple II was also the first personal computer capable of color graphics and easy modem operation. -
TRS-80
Radio Shack's TRS-80 selling for about $500 complete with video monitor and BASIC took the personal computer market by storm. It had a fast Z-80 processor it use a cassette recorder for program and data storage. Later models incorporated disk drives and more memory. -
Atari 800
The Atari Models 400 and 800 were considered the best personal computers for games and color graphics. They had a very large family of game software. Lack of good disk and peripheral support cased these machines to have a short life. -
TI 99-4
The Texas Instruments 99-4A used a TI 16-bit processor. It lacked easy expansion capabilities and required proprietary software. After engaging in a price war with Commodore, TI stopped production and sold out below $100 per computer. -
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 was the best-selling personal computer of all time. It had a large memory capacity. It could use a TV for a monitor and there was all the software anyone could want. -
Morrow
The Morrow computer was one of last powerful Z-80 powered S-100 computers. Representative of the designs supplanted by the IBM PC, this machine was sold as a complete system including a video terminal and printer. It ran the CP/M operating system and the MP/M multi-user operating system.
