Must Read: Sorry, but bringing back the Start menu won't help Windows 8

Topic: Hardware

Nostalgia Tech 3: Vintage CES hardware

Summary: Imagine visiting the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the 70's, 80's and 90's. You would have probably seen these brand new pieces of tech, ready to be launched.

Eileen Brown

By Eileen Brown for Social Business |

 |  Image 18 of 18

XT Clone

Leading Edge model D with Intel 8088 processor 4.77MHz / 8MHz switchable. 640K RAM, 20 Mb Hard drive. Released 1985.

Credit: Hard Forum

Nostalgia Tech: 15 cool Steampunk gadgets

Nostalgia Tech 2: 20 Retro PC ads

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Topics: Hardware, After Hours

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21 comments
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  • The iMac G3 let me drop Windows

    and all Microsoft products forever.
    DontUseMicrosoftAtAll
    Reply 3 Votes

    • Who cares?

      Really, who cares.
      William Farrel
      Reply Vote

      • Re: Who cares?

        Someone who takes the trouble to login and post about it.
        ldo17
        Reply Vote

      • You care!

        You seem to care since you answered his post! Dude, seriously, I see your posts when I happen to log in to this site, do you have a day time job, really?
        Eleutherios
        Reply Vote

  • I remember Apple [i]II[/i]e.

    Ah, the good old days of Apple unlike today (with all the tactics and patents filed against Samsung). Apple was not like that.
    Grayson Peddie
    Reply Vote

    • Yeah.

      Because Apple went after Franklin for copying the IIe at 10/9ths scale (yep, I meant to say it like that). Then they went after the company making Laser-brand Apple Clones, but lost thanks to Microsoft retaining ownership of AppleSoft BASIC and the rest of the ROM being clean-room reverse engineered, and lost.
      Champ_Kind
      Reply Vote

  • Other Forgotten Pioneers...

    NEC MultiSync--the first multiscanning monitor, adaptable to a whole range of horizontal and vertical scan rates. Other monitors required your graphics card to be exactly configured to the right rate, otherwise they could overheat and start giving off smoke.

    NCR Tower--pioneered the upright PC form factor. Then they tried to claim a trademark on the name "Tower", as it became a generic term for that form factor.
    ldo17
    Reply Vote

  • WTH...

    Toshiba Infinia

    Pentium 2 MMX 256Mb RAM, 750MHz Athlon processor. Released January 1996 (?)

    Ummmm. Athlon Processors didn't hit the market until well after 1999.
    mikedees
    Reply 1 Vote

  • You missed a truly important system, the C64

    Introduced in 1982 the Commodore 64 was a touchstone system. From 1983 to 86 it was the best selling computer in the world. With comparable hardware to the Apple II series at about half the price it easily outpaced the Apple and IBM crowd. I believe if it wasn't for some phenomenally poor marketing and disastrous management decisions Commodore would be a major player today.
    Scubajrr
    Reply Vote

    • Commodore

      I agree, while I never owned a 64, I did own 2 Amiga's and they were fantastic computers, years ahead of IBM and Apple. Would have ruled the roost if Commodore hadn't mucked it up. They honestly had no idea what they had acquired in the Amiga. Also one correction on the Apple IIe. They list it as introduced in 1983 but I bought one of the very first ones in 1980. Ran it with cassette tape for about the first 6 mo. before I could afford a 5.25 drive.
      Baksidah
      Reply Vote

      • Apple IIe was introduced near the end of 83

        You bought an Apple II in 1980, the IIe was an updated model that was introduced in 83 like I said.
        CitizenX
        Reply Vote

  • 1984 Macintosh had 3.5 inch floppy

    1984 Macintosh had 3.5 inch floppy, the caption said 5.25 inch but it was the 3.5 inch. You had to have your un-bent paperclip ready to eject when things went awry since it had no button/lever/or anything else other than the little hole. I also remember Apple's advertising "Why 1984 won't be like 1984" referring to George Orwell's book. I'm not an Apple fan at all (no totally proprietary products for me, Apple, Sony, etc), but I have to give them credit for the Mac. The Lisa was a great failure, but they didn't give up and the Mac has survived (along with many other failures and successes over the years).
    bill_r1
    Reply 1 Vote

  • Personally

    I liked my computers when they came with the Turbo button below the on/off switch... I still have no idea what it did.. but it said TURBO
    eatingacheesepastieforlunch
    Reply 2 Votes

    • My old Packard Bell needed that Turbo button...

      ... otherwise, old CGA and EGA graphics games would run way too fast.
      Champ_Kind
      Reply 1 Vote

  • Your list could have been better...

    First, the Atari 400 sucked and the 800XL was okay; you should have went with the original 800 instead. Also, there was the C64 previously mentioned in the comments, the Amiga computer (the only machine that gave Macintosh a run for its money throughout the 1980s), bunches of video game consoles throughout the late 1970s through the mid 1980s, so many other portable computers, and pretty much everything Sony pioneered (Walkman anyone?)
    Champ_Kind
    Reply Vote

    • the 400 and 800

      The differences were not a big deal, mostly in the keyboard and the 400 only had one cartridge slot. Seeing as there was very little you could do with the 2nd slot, it was no big deal.
      CitizenX
      Reply Vote

  • Clueless list

    First, apple has NEVER exhibited at CES so unless someone hand carried in a Mac as a demo - its how clueless she is. Also, prior to about 10 years ago, CES was not really a major trade show outsideof people who sold av gear like stereo stores ... COMDEX was the "high tech" show until about 10-12 years ago when CE went mainstream and high tech versus computers who were so important until about 12 years ago when they realized thy did not need to spend $10 million dollars for a show to announce the specs of their pc were going from 1.2 to 1.7 ... This list is based on some alternative universe where she knows what she's talking about ...
    jbelkin
    Reply Vote

    • Exactly

      With most of these examples, I was thinking what the bazoomy did they have to do with CES.

      I remember Atari spent a million on their booth one year (some early 80's year, not sure which) and it was the talk of the show. Or was that Comdex? So many years, so many .... you get the idea.
      CitizenX
      Reply Vote

  • Toshiba Infinia-1996? I think thats too early.

    I owned one of those old Atari 800XL machines. Started looking for my first decent computer in 98. I seen a lot of 600 and 650's as bleeding edge home units in those days. I remember the first all black Dell 700 I seen in a Dell flyer. I think it was closer to 98, or early 99. It was impressive to say the least. I got an 800 in November of 99 but there were slightly faster units already floating around for home use by that time.

    Just my recollections.
    Cayble
    Reply Vote

  • TRS-80 IBM compatible

    My first "real" computer was the TRaSh-80 with a TV monitor. It was also my first major lesson in computer repair: Unplug it before working on the motherboard. I got such pretty lights on my TV. And the manual was 2X as heavy as the system. I killed the MoBo by wiggling the 300bps dial-up modem.

    Paul
    pfyearwood
    Reply Vote
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