Year: 1985-1994 Initial Price: 9500 lei The HC stands for Home Computer and it represents a series  of microcomputers made  from 1985 until 1994 at ICE Felix București. They were based on the Z80 CPUs or the Romanian clone, the MMN80 CPU. The design has been inspired from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. There were 5 series and sub-series of this computer. 1HC 85 2HC…

YEAR: 1988 Initial Price:  1800,- DEM $1058   The PC was an MS-DOS-based home computer of the Schneider computer division. The motherboard was installed in the keyboard housing. Almost same hardware was also packed in the Sinclair PC200 and Amstrad PC20. There seemed to be some kind of minor rush to get these “desktop” PCs into…

YEAR: 1982-1994 INITIAL PRICE:  US$595 (equivalent to $1,477 in 2016)   The C64 dominated the low-end computer market for most of the 1980s. Part of the Commodore 64’s success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores. Commodore produced many of its parts in-house to control costs, including custom integrated circuit chips from MOS Technology….

YEAR: 1979 INITIAL PRICE: $525, $1368 in 2016 “Now computers are like toasters, cheap and un-interesting.” The TI 99/4A is a pretty unusual computer. It is the oldest computer in my collection (1981) but at the same time it is technically a 16-bit computer! (it hosts a 16-bit TMS9900 CPU running at 3.0 MHz). It…

YEAR: 1982 INITIAL PRICE: US 595 (equivalent to $1,477 in 2016)   The Commodore 64, also known as the C64 or the CBM 64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, January 7–10. 1982). It is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent…

Year: 1984 Initial Price: GBP £359.00   The Schneider CPC (short for Colour Personal Computer) is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Schneider and Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking…

YEAR: 1988 INITIAL PRICE: 15 000 lei, aprox. $500 US Dollars   A Romanian Sinclair ZX-Spectrum clone made from 1988 by Electronica CIE and sold only in Romania in blue or red case colour version. In fact, the colors only differed on the keyboard marquee, the case color being the same. On the red version the background…

YEAR: 1984 INITIAL PRICE: $ 210   Planning of the ZX Spectrum+ started in June 1984, and it was released in October the same year. This 48 KB Spectrum (development code-name TB) introduced a new QL-style case with an injection-moulded keyboard and a reset button that was basically a switch that shorted across the CPU reset capacitor. Electronically, it was identical to…

YEAR: 1982 INITIAL PRICE: £175   The ZX Spectrum (UK: /zɛd ɛks ˈspɛktrəm/) is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research. It was manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, in the now closed Timex factory. ZX Spectrum       1982 ZX Spectrum Developer Sinclair Research Manufacturer Timex Corporation Type Home computer Generation 8-bit Release date United Kingdom: 23 April 1982; 35 years ago…

Year: 1988 Price: $129   These were the 65XE and 130XE (XE stood for XL-Expanded). They were announced in 1985, at the same time as the initial models in the Atari ST series, and visually resembled the Atari ST. Originally intended to be called the 900XLF, the 65XE had 64 KB of RAM and was…