Eaca
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Colour Genie
Released in 1982 and costing £168, the
Colour Genie
was a competant machine that completely failed to sell (in the UK at
least).
The machine's sales were probably not helped greatly by it's own
marketing
literature which, in a comparison chart on the last page, made the
Colour
Genie look inferior to almost all of the competition.
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Enterprise
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Enterprise 128
When originally announced in September 1983,
the Enterprise
appeared to be an ideal machine, promising excellent graphics and
expandability.
Unfortunately, due to numerous techincal problems the machine wasn't
released
until May 1985, by which time its features, while still good, did not
make
it stand out from the more established competition.
Along with the technical problems, the
Enterprise also
suffered from an identity crisis during its development. When first
announced,
the machine was called the Enterprise Elan, a little later this was
changed
to the Flan, then the Samurai and finally just the Enterprise.
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Gavilan
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The Gavilan Laptop
Approx. Value : $200
First year of production : 1983
The Gavilan ran its own GOS as well as MS-DOS on an 8088 processor. It
came with 64K RAM, expandable to 128K. Weighing in at 9 pounds, or 14
with
the portable printer, it had a touchpad "mouse" on the front,
as shown in the picture just above the keyboard.
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Goldstar
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Goldstar FC-200
Released in May 1984 and costing £230,
the FC-200
was Goldstar's MSX contender.
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Grundy
Business Systems
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NewBrain M
Released in February 1981 at a price of
£159, the
Grundy NewBrain M was the cheapest of the NewBrain range, running only
on mains power (the other two, the NewBrain MB and the NewBrain MBS
were
capable of running from batteries) and containing no in-built display.
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.NewBrain MB
Released in February 1981 at a price of
£199, the
Grundy NewBrain MB was the mid-range model of the NewBrain family,
designed
to run primarily from mains power, but with the ability to run from
batteries
for a limited period.
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Hitachi
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Hitachi HB-H80
Released in May 1984, Hitachi's HB-H80 was yet
another
MSX machine.
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IBM
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5100 precursor & The Mark 8
The Mark-8 (above, left) was an Intel 8008 based machine with
256 bytes
RAM. It was introduced in July 1974, and 1000-2000 were produced. It
was
the first personal computer to really be marketed, and had no ROM. The
current market value of a Mark-8 is a round $12,000.
The machine pictured above right was the precursor to the IBM 5100
machine.
It was introduced in 1975, and was very costly. It was IBM's first
entry
into the microcomputer market.
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IMS Associates, Inc.
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The IMSAI 8080
Approx. Value : $250
First year of production : 1975
Description :
The IMSAI 8080 used an Intel 8080A processor, and came with
4K RAM.
I/O was through front panel switches and LED's, without additional
peripherals.
It was once the fastest selling microcomputer. It had an S-100 bus with
22 expansion slots. Shown above is a unit with dual 8" floppy disk
drives.
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JVC
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JVC HC 7GB
Released in May 1984 at the price of
£279, the HC
7GB was JVC's MSX offering.
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Jupiter
Cantab
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Jupiter Ace
Released in April 1983 at the price of
£89.95, the
Jupiter Ace was a rather unique machine. Rather than the usual BASIC
programming
language used by their competitors, Jupiter Cantab equipped their
machine
with Forth.
In June 1983, a successor to the Ace, named
the Ace 16+
was announced, but the company's demise in November of the same year
meant
that the machine was never released.
The machine's similar appearance to the ZX81,
is not coincidental,
as the designers, Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers, were both
ex-Sinclair
employees.
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