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From: Rowland McDonnell on 21 Jun 2010 18:27 SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Jim <jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > > > SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > It was the only 'home' computer to support analogue joysticks and have > > > an 'industry standard' parallel printer port, too. > > > > I assume you're discounting the BBC Micro and Apple 2 in this category? > > When I say 'home' computer, I mean something that the average person > would have bought - ie. the same market segment as the Spectrum / Vic 20 > / C64 etc. The average person wouldn't have bought a home micro, having no use for one. I knew a few with Apple ][s. I knew rather more people with computers that they had built themselves - mostly from kits, but even then what do you say to a man who's made computers only ever put computer kits or parts together but has a crazy mind so *his* computer trolley is set up so he can store programs on floppy disc /or/ punched paper tape for archiving? (and probably cassette, but I was so stunned by the floppy/paper tape combo I didn't think to ask). I did say `parts', and okay sometimes the parts were, erm, okay TTL chips etc wired up on PCBs he had designed himself because he needed some glue circuitry that no-one else had ever seen the need for before, because who the hell would ever want to do *that*??? Oh god he mentioned something he'd made that needed ECL3 one time, ISTR remembering that... Yeah. They laughed at him, they did, right up until the day the basement lab flooded and he just dried out the paper tapes in his filing cabinet, ironed them, carefully read them, and put the data back on fresh floppies. I think he had backups of all his really important stuff off-site; he was the type. Everyone else who had software not stored off-site was screwed - which was all of them, the lazy buggers. > Can't remember how much our Dragon cost - think it was �179 at Christmas > in 1982. > > A BBC was double that - and an Apple II even more, as I recall. Our BBC Micro was �235 in 1981 - we got ours very early, via a friend at the Beeb. No price reduction, but priority delivery :-) They went up to �299/�399 (A/B) not long after. Apple ][s were always too expensive for most home users - but that's because Apple back then did the UK home micro industry a favour along with most other US home micro firms by deliberately pricing its kit at an uncompetitively high price, basically by charging the same number of pounds sterling as they charged US dollars. I'm sure that's why the UK home micro scene was so vibrant - the Yanks more or less priced themselves out of the market at the start of things. Commodore noticed and changed eventually, I gather. Apple is still ripping us off, but since the diverse and exciting global home micro industry was laid waste in by the evil Wintel empire in the dark days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, we don't have much choice: Apple withstood the assault, but it's long been a single lonely beacon of hope shining out over a devasted wilderness. To continue this remarkably silly analogy, recently there have been signs of organized life out there, visible from the Apple sancturary - shabby settlements are springing up and something like a primitive form of civilization is being cobbled together from the post-apocalyptic rubble and detritus despoiling the landscape. We call them the free Unix brigade. They are signs of hope for the future - but god help us if they *are* the hope for the future, if you see what I mean... > Even the Acorn Electron was a lot more expensive. Wasn't out in 1982 - they came out in '83 at �199. That's about 11% more - you really think that's a /lot/ more expensive? Regarding the next year, 1984, there's this: <http://www.nowgamer.com/features/104/retro-inspection-acorn-electron?o= 2> "A stronger than expected Christmas saw this number double, with a Dixons spokesman expressing delight that the Electron was selling "four to five times as well as we had expected". This in spite of Acorn sticking to its �199 launch price, the same price as the heavily discounted C64, and vastly more expensive than the all-conquering �129.99 Spectrum 48K. In January 1985, however, Sir Clive Sinclair put the squeeze on still further, slashing the price of the Spectrum+ to �129.99. Acorn responded immediately, dropping the Electron by �70 to go head-to-head at that price point, but the new mark undoubtedly put further pressure on the company - the Electron was widely known to be costlier to produce than the Spectrum." Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: SteveH on 21 Jun 2010 18:35 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > It was the only 'home' computer to support analogue joysticks > > The BBC Micro was a home micro of the same era that had four A-D inputs > standard, intended for analogue joysticks (and on the same port: game > switch inputs, and a light pen input). The BBC was a totally different marketplace - seems my memory isn't all it was, but even at �399, that was a big step up from �179. And yes, the Electron was launched at �199, 11% more than a Dragon - but a lot of BBC stuff wouldn't run on an Electron, so it was largely unsupported, plus �20 back then was an awful lot of money - �179 is the equivalent of a �500 machine today, with �199 being, obviously, around �560. Now, I don't know what my dad earned back then - but I know I was earning in my mid 20s more than he'd ever earned in his relatively senior position - so that �20 was worth an awful lot to your 'average' family. -- SteveH
From: Rowland McDonnell on 21 Jun 2010 18:59 SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > I bought a BBC b, and I really was not rich at the time. It was way > > nicer to use. > > But it was a considerably more expensive machine - I don't think the > average household was tempted by a �500 computer, BBC Micros were �235/�335 at launch, rising to �299/�399 because of high demand (rather than high production costs as sometimes claimed). Demand drove the price up. People were so /heavily/ tempted by them that they had to reduce demand by increasing price. At least, that's what was claimed at the time - I've never actually done the digging to be sure. Not heard that they ever sold one at �500 - but who knows? Acorn offered a �4k BBC Micro/ARM combo as a development tool, based on the rig they used to develop the Arc's software before they had an Arc actually built. > as people mostly got > their knowledge from browsing the computers in Boots / WH Smith > (remember those days?) and Dixons. Or the BBC's computer literacy program, or the school BBC Micros, or the magazines in the library, or the computer manuals directly. Being the means whereby the people I knew got their computer information back then. [snip] Rowland. (who read PCW in the library like a sensible chap because it had /comfy chairs/ - and also shelves of books on computers, too, so I could look up interesting things if I needed to) -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 21 Jun 2010 18:59 Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > <snip> > > > Going with 6809 processors rather than Z80 gave it a technologial > > > edge, > > > but very few applications seemed to take advantage of this. > > > > I disliked the 6809 quite a lot. Don't know why, as you say, it should > > be good but I never got on with it > > I did largish commercial projects on both and ended up with the > opposite bias. 6809 felt like a cute little pdp-11 that ran out of > money before they could finish it. I did a telemetry thing that ran the > receiver section of Australia's old coastal radio service from the > transmitter site. It had a lovely simple debug device and was a joy to > write code for. > > The Z80 was still a grotty 8080 at heart, overhyped to high buggery at > the time. Oi! Hold on a bit, yes you're right about the API to an extent - but the Z80 does have a few neat tricks, including the integrated chipset and the ease with which you can integrate it into a complete computer system. (not to mention those shadow registers and the 16 bit combine-two-8-bit registers mode and so on) That wasn't mere /hype/ - dunno how it compares in that line to the 6809, but it's much more convenient to design hardware including a Z-80 than it is to do so with a 6502 for sure. It's not merely `bad' luck that the Z80 architecture is sort of still alive today, right? Microcontrollery things seemed to be still around in that line, rather oddly it seemed to me, last time I looked. [snip] Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 21 Jun 2010 19:24
SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > It was the only 'home' computer to support analogue joysticks > > > > The BBC Micro was a home micro of the same era that had four A-D inputs > > standard, intended for analogue joysticks (and on the same port: game > > switch inputs, and a light pen input). > > The BBC was a totally different marketplace - seems my memory isn't all > it was, but even at �399, that was a big step up from �179. I have to say that the BBC Micro was always a home computer - not a totally different marketplace at all, but competing head to head with the Dragon 32. Don't forget the �299 Model A machine - that's not such a big step up, is it? No, it's not - and they set that higher price because it was the price that maximised profit from available production capacity. The early BBC Micro prices were proven by the marketplace to have been too cheap for the demand that it produced - and so the price went up, /because demand was so high/. And the BBC Micro's higher price was justified by the BBC Micro's superior technical features - assuming you had a use for them, of course. If not, buy something cheaper. > And yes, the Electron was launched at �199, 11% more than a Dragon - but > a lot of BBC stuff wouldn't run on an Electron, so it was largely > unsupported, Really? Did the Electron really have so much less software than the Dragon, for example? I have to say that the Electron was `largely supported' in your terms from what I knew of the situation. > plus �20 back then was an awful lot of money No it bloody wasn't. (Price comparisons <http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/> Current data is only available till 2008.) �20 was a lot back in the 1950s: In 2008, �20 0s 0d from 1955 was worth: �393.00 using the retail price index �407.00 using the GDP deflator �1,030.00 using the average earnings �1,230.00 using the per capita GDP �1,490.00 using the share of GDP not in the mid bloody 80s. �20 was /more/ in the 80s than it is now, but it wasn't `an awful lot of money' in those days by any means of judging that sort of thing. In 2008, �20.00 from 1984 was worth: �48.20 using the retail price index �46.70 using the GDP deflator �70.00 using the average earnings �80.40 using the per capita GDP �87.80 using the share of GDP Okay, using share of GDP, it's a lot - but that's just a way of saying that the nation-as-a-whole is richer on average. Using the RPI, it's less than �50, which is about what I thought �20 from then was worth now-ish. Tells me my price-comparator is working, that's all. > - �179 is the > equivalent of a �500 machine today, with �199 being, obviously, around > �560. In 2008, �179.00 from 1984 was worth: �431.00 using the retail price index �418.00 using the GDP deflator �626.00 using the average earnings �720.00 using the per capita GDP �786.00 using the share of GDP In 2008, �199.00 from 1984 was worth: �479.00 using the retail price index �465.00 using the GDP deflator �696.00 using the average earnings �800.00 using the per capita GDP �874.00 using the share of GDP > Now, I don't know what my dad earned back then - but I know I was > earning in my mid 20s more than he'd ever earned in his relatively > senior position - so that �20 was worth an awful lot to your 'average' > family. Dad, if considering two different computers priced two years ago at: �431.00 using the retail price index �479.00 using the retail price index would look at the small fractional price difference and say `Well, if I've got to shell out a lot of money like that, I'd better make sure I'm not wasting it. It might make sense to buy the more expensive one, if that avoids me buying a lemon, after all, it's not that much more'. Dad these days is happier spending more than that, because the nation is richer: we have more disposable income, more wealth. Even so, dad these days might well be spending more than a grand on a computer, right? And using national wealth or average income type figures, the price comparison between �179/�199 in 1984 and now-ish looks like: �720.00 using the per capita GDP �800.00 using the per capita GDP Clearly, the higher price is *STILL* only 11% more (shock, horror!), so even though modern dad's happy to spend a much larger sum of money compared to the price of bread (etc) these days than dad would have done in the 80s, the difference in price is still a measly `call it 10%'. And that's always the comparison, regardless of the number or value or name or /anything/ about the currency units it costs. btw, since `modern dad' is willing to spend so much more in real terms on a computer than the price of a BBC Micro back in the 80s, how can you talk about a 10% price difference being such a big deal back then at that price point - which I think the above figures establish as a medium-to-low one by modern standards, taking into account price and value fluctuations in the economy and money supply. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |