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Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:32 pmby drummerphil
Cool Hand Luke wrote:It seems as though the Altair, in 1974, was the first commercially available personal computer, and it used the “The Intel 8080” which had a speed of 2MHz.
i thought you meant "home" computers........computers in commercial / business terms have been around since the fifties,they were the size of a small terraced house.
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:35 pmby Cool Hand Luke
I did mean home computers, isn’t it the same as a personal computer?
Was the Altair not targeted at the average man in the street(or the very rich average man in the street!)?
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:39 pmby drummerphil
well when you consider a bbc home computer in 1980 would cost about 8 grand.......i guess not....
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:51 pmby Cool Hand Luke
According to this website the Altair 8800 computer was available for $ 397 in 1975, it also says "Roberts and the rest of the world was soon amazed at how many people wanted to have their own computer. Things never settled down - in one day they sold 200 computers over the phone."
http://www.virtualaltair.com/virtualaltair.com/mits0020.asp
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:53 pmby Woollyback
roberts
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:56 pmby drummerphil
yes but their are computers and their are computers........i had a zx81 in 1982 cost about £80 but it was the biggest pile of shíte invented,,,,,,:D
WOW
Posted:
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:58 pmby Cool Hand Luke
So who would you say were the first company to mass market the PC?
Posted:
Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:02 amby drummerphil
IBM and Amstrad have to be up there
Posted:
Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:52 amby hawkmoon269
drummerphil wrote:yes but their are computers and their are computers........i had a zx81 in 1982 cost about £80 but it was the biggest pile of shíte invented,,,,,,:D
WOW
I wrecked my ZX Specky playing Daley Thompson's Decathlon with a golf ball! It was held together with packing tape and bostic
Posted:
Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:41 amby JBG
Cool Hand Luke wrote:JBG wrote:Clock speed of CPUs no longer matter, efficiency per clock is the big thing now ( a bit like the Mazda RX8 engine, which is only 1.3 litres but is very powerful).
AMD's fastest chip clocks at 2.8GHZ but is much faster than anything Intel currently has available, including Intels high end 4GHZ clocked chips.
CPUs are now becoming dual core, so its even harder for the layman to figure out exactly how good their computer is.
At what point did it change, when was the last point when you could simply compare the MHz or GHz of a personal computer to see which one was faster?
AMD started to rebadge its chips at the end of 2001/start 2002 when it brought in the XP range in place of the Thunderbird range.
Up until the last Thunderbird AMD compared with Intel clock for clock. Intel kept clocking their chips higher and higher, whereas from 2002 AMD saw small increases in clock speed give rise to large increases in performances, as its chips were more efficient than Intel's.
A very simple analogy is that AMD's cpus are "smarter" (actually, more efficient is a better term) whereas Intel has used brute force to compete.
An AMD Xp 2500 for example is only clocked at about 1.6 GHZ but it has a comparable performance to an Pentium IV running at 2.5GHZ, hence the reason AMD badges it the "XP 2500".
AMD are currently the top dogs in performance but Intel will reclaim the crown they have lost for a few years this summer when they release their next generation chip, codenamed "Conroe".
We already have dual core processors and the processor behind the Xbox360 is triple core, and next year we should start seeing quad core processors in home computers. Once software has been optimised for multicore processors then we will see massive performance gains.
Posted:
Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:46 pmby Cool Hand Luke
Does anyone know where I can get sales figures or markets share figures for computer makers? Any figures would be great, but the more recent the better.
I’m guessing that Dell, Compaq and IBM are the leaders.
Posted:
Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:04 amby Judge
drummerphil wrote:yes but their are computers and their are computers........i had a zx81 in 1982 cost about £80 but it was the biggest pile of shíte invented,,,,,,:D
WOW
i like your archive pictures phil