The Best Computers of The 1980s

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1. Amstrad CPC 464- Amstrad, an abbreviation of Alan Michael Sugar Trading Ltd (yes THAT Alan Sugar, by the way--you're fired) was formerly known for producing low-quality HiFi and music equipment, but all was to change with the CPC. It was marvellously long, nearly a metre in width and had playful yet serious coloured function, shift and arrow keys; along with a built in tape recorder. It was built like an absolute tank, and had some of the finest games ever to adorn a computer from the '80.s (Who could complain about Get Dexter?) and had marvellous graphics and capabilities, along with a colourful basic screen. Yellow and blue was quite a thing in 1984. The original keyboards on the Amstrads had wonerfully tall keycaps, and a soft feel with a lovely muted sound. Sadly, the later keyboards were prone to echoeing and had shorter, more weak keycaps with a less desirable feel. But, putting that aside, the games and basic programming language-not to forget the built in tape recorder could probably discount that issue for you

2.The Commodore 64- Commodore Business Machines Ltd, of America, already had computer fame in the US. Starting with the PET and Vic 20, the 64 was realy were the gold was at. Angular, rugged and tall it gave a great towering status. The SID chip or (Sound Interface Device) was the great MOS technology chip that gave the Commodore its' sound'. The was sound was beautiful and akin to some proffessional synthesizers from the era. Games like Lemmings, and Spellunker made use of the the great chip. Graphics could be described as a little "washed out", but the SID chip made up for it. The keyboard however, was not the best-even in 1982. The keycaps were tall and grand and had a nice textured feel to them. But, the switches inside of them, gave them a rather "mushy" and/or "squishy" feel to them, but the plastic gave some tactility to them. The Basic on the other hand. It was marvellous, one was able to go back and easily edit past code. With the pressing of two buttons, you could change the background colour, screen border colour or letter colour. Also, with the conbinations of 2 buttons, you could place graphics on the screen. Yes, Commodore basic was rather fantastic.

3.The Dragon 32- Wales. Yes THAT Wales. Cymru. Dragon Data Co Ltd was a Welsh company that specialised in computers alike etc. In August of 1982, the same year that Commodore released their 64, dragon released their 32. It was called the Dragon 32 due to the amount of RAM (Random Accessed Memory) that was contained inside of it. It was a very light beast (if you shall pardon the pun) yet seemed to be contained in a rather large form factor. Its' basic' was based on the rather marvellous Tandy Colour Computer basic, and even retained the interesting black on green typeface; and yes, you do get used to it. Like the previous Amstrad CPC 464 mentioned, the Dragon also sported a marvellous keyboard. The Dragon was also notable for featuring a "Reset" button, something that the previous 2 computers sadly lacked. Unlike the Amstrad, the Dragon was also exported to America under the name of "Tano Dragon 32" (Tano being the distributer). One setback though, despite its' good basic' the graphics were sadly rather sub-par, even for 1982. But all in all, a very good computer indeed.

The Acorn Electron- After the success of their BBC Microcomputing System, Acorn realised that with their use in schools, schoolchildren, boys and girls were eager to program their basic commands onto the same computer. Yes, I do realise that BBC Micros were available for the public to buy, but they were not excactly cheap. (Standing at a fixed price of £299 for a Model A and £399 for a Model B). So Roger (Sophie) Wilson, Hermann Hauser and Steve Furber wanted to slightly downgrade a BBC Micro and make it available for consumers at a good price. And thus the Acorn Electron was born in 1983. It used the same marvellous BBC Basic, with the wonderful sound commands-and another plus, Elite was available for it. It weighed only 1.6 kilograms and was in a relatively small form factor (not much bigger than an average keyboard). Like the previous computers, it also possessed a wonderful keyboard, that used real mechanical switches. But, due to dwindling sales it was discontinued in late 1986, and was never seen to return again. But, its' legacy' from Cambridge to the British microcomputing world will never be forgotten......

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