The computer market crash of the early/mid 80's.

[Keatah]

We all know why the videogame market crashed back in the day. And there have been many discussions on this topic. But let us take a look from the computer side of things.

 

Toy computer sales didn't show much of any growth, but real professional computers showed 25% at that same time.

 

I think (like the videos mention straight away) the buyer sophistication level started rising. People that were burned by the conundrum of having spent $500+ on a home system and not finding it all that productive didn't go out and buy more. Eventually they grew into the systems. But it took time.

 

And then you have hundreds or even thousands of manufacturers selling either the same thing or something that was too much of a novelty. And of course the old adage of market saturation.

 

I also want to add that there were too many standards and that confused consumers. And the consumers that were knowledgeable - things were unnecessarily complicated. And finally there were games, once the PC proved itself as a capable gaming computer, no other systems (aside from dedicated consoles) mattered.

 

What does everyone think?

 

Edited November 14, 2014 by Keatah

[high voltage]

Don't know if true, according to CGW the C64 really took off in 1983, and IBMs gaining momentum, maybe after mid 80s?

[Osgeld]

in late 83 early 84 the market in the US had a shakeout, this normally happens when everyone and their brother enter a new market. It didnt really effect any of the players that had a good foundation, like commie, IBM, apple, tandy etc but it did get those smaller markets like osbourne, gavilin, coleco.

 

And while those examples were doomed to fail (osbourne and gavilin were both behind the times and coleco just made the adam a launch turd) it did effect a lot of people like peripheral and software makers, retail stores, and large semi conductor companies who had a huge stockpile of parts made up and a almost halted market

 

if the C64 did have a large take off, its cause there wasnt 1500 "jim bob's budget computers" competing with it in that market space anymore, its also why the rise of the PC happened, cause yes people were getting tired of buying a system and the company went bankrupt before you even got it home.

 

with the PC and its clones you had a rock solid set of (sub par) standards many people were adhering to rather than hoping you bought one from a company that would be around in 6 months, praying your aquarius would get even 1/16th the software catalog as Apple and PC

Edited November 16, 2014 by Osgeld

[Seob]

I do not count home computers and pc's as 2 different markets, i just count them as the same market. Only difference was the lack of standard the "home" computer had. That's why the msx standard was introduced. I don't see it as a crash, but the market had to settled at one point anyway. People expected that if they bought a new computer, that they where able to use the old software and periperals they already invested a lot of money in.

But i think it wasn't until the mid nineties before the market settled for the PC-clones and the Mac. Before that u still had the Amiga, in a lesser extend " in the Netherlands" the Atari ST, and still a lot of people used they're commodore 64 and msx.

Pc market over here started to get of when people where introduced to the pc when they start working with them at their daytime job.

Once you could buy pc's cheap because people could buy they with discount, via work called ,the pc at home projects, the pc market really took of.

[kiwilove]

One outstanding series that goes into the history of technology/inventions/etc would be:

Understanding the Inventions that changed the world.

 

I haven't viewed the later lectures but going by the earlier ones - it's always the case that when something new arrives - it takes time, etc etc etc for the invention to fully mature and be of use to the public, etc etc. Rarely is the case when the original developers are still in the biz they started - more often than not - it is others who see the full potential and utilise it.

 

Harvey

[+save2600]

I don't remember anyone feeling "burned" after purchasing a $500+ computer BITD. At that price point, you had very capable and expandable systems. I'd argue that people enjoyed, used and invested in what they had for a longer period of time than we do today. One only has to look at old computer mags and catalogs of the time to see how damned popular computing really was.

 

Yes, those (and I knew a few) that purchased Time Sinclair 1000's, PC Jr.'s, Aquarius and even the TI - all QUICKLY went on to bigger and better systems: usually by Commodore, Apple and IBM. Only knew one or two kids that had an Atari 800 and 400 and I ended up buying a 400 off one of them.

 

Everyone I knew with a C64 had a disk drive and printer. And the entire family used the computer for various tasks. Look at the sheer amount of productivity software available for said machine and you'll be astounded. The one kid I knew with an Atari 800 was the same way. Had a disk drive, printer, etc. and his dad used it professionally. Spreadsheet, word processing, etc.

 

Looking back at the past can be a funny thing when you say "when the PC became a capable gaming computer", I'd place that timeline around the early to mid 90's. Before then, the Amiga easily dominated. At the very least, in the circles I traveled in. Hell, even most sales clerks at stores knew that to be true. Had a friend that managed Babbages BITD and we'd often discuss how shitty IBM PeeCee gaming was until then. Especially from an end user POV regarding returns and complaints about software not working or working correctly. Late 80's-early 90's were dismal times for anything resembling PC "gaming". Monochrome, EGA, CGA, VGA this. Soundblaster, AdlIb or Roland that. 640kb + "extended" memory, DMA, IRQ, high density/low density, 3-1/2", 5-1/4"... bah! Talk about a wretched confusing mess!

 

Guess by the time the PC really took off, peoples kids were doing their damnedest to get their games to run. Installed base and all that hogwash. I did know a few people whose parents had an IBM for their uses, while the kids (late teenagers at this point) had their own computers for theirs. And that computer was an Amiga. Only knew one kid that had an ST. My brothers friend. Didn't even know he was an ST guy until just a few years ago when we started talking on Facebook. He's literally the only single person I've ever known that had an ST BITD. Wish I would have known that back then! Would have had fun "comparing" his system with mine.

[atarian63]

seemed like I saw alot of Atari and apple up to 85, c64 actually started getting going well in 85, only rich folks paid for apples and they were really inferior (graphics and sound) and then of course pc's which in the home market seemed to get going in 88 or so at least at my retail store. so many things going on, price war by tramiel, Atari in disarray and the sold , kept them unfocused for about 2 years. Ti and others died, what a mess it all was. Yet it seemed there was still demand for Atari , c64 continued it's rise and apple of course had the education market. It was all about to change more with Atari ST, Mac and Amiga at least for a few years but I think these were most folks 2nd pc after having had one of the 1st gen 8 bits.Mostly saw ST's until 87 when a500 got going, Amiga never really took off for us,St was always the obvious choice till Atari cut the supply in the US. What a mess.

Edited November 23, 2014 by atarian63

[Keatah]

I was still a shit-faced bratty kid at the time the PC rose to dominance. But I was smart enough to recognize software interoperability between brands, and peripheral compatibility between generations.

 

Generic peripherals like parallel printers and serial modems worked across all generations and all brands. I used my Epson MX-80 on my Apple II as well as my 1990's era PC, and Amiga. I used my Supra 2400 baud external serial modem on the Amiga and PC equally. But it would have worked on my Atari 800 or Apple II all the same. I used my power bars and some cables and perhaps a monitor or two also.

 

But software? Forget it. What worked on the C64 didn't work on the Apple II. And what worked on the 400/800 didn't work on the C-64. And none of the above transferred to more powerful 16-bitters like the ST or Amiga series. TRS-80, Adam, Aqurius, and others all had the same issues.

 

But the PC reigned it all in when it came to forward and backward software compatibility. What worked on Dell also worked on Compaq or IBM. And what worked on IBM also ran on Gateway 2000 and Leading Edge. And it didn't matter what hardware generation it was (within reason) either. I could rest assured that what software I purchased today would work on the hardware upgrades I got 3 years from now. Something the 8-bit and 16-bit era machines didn't offer in as much depth and scope as the PC industry did.

 

I could play Doom on my DX/2-50 as well as my buddies could on their 386sx-40's, and we could both dream of getting Pentium 60 or Pentium-Pro 200's without worrying whether our stuff work work.

 

The PC also ushered in an era of standardized ports and APIs to control them. And the final thing was FILETYPES. This was perhaps the biggest and most important development in computing. The basics ones like, DOC, TXT, PDF, RTF, XLS, ZIP, GIF, JPG, BMP, TIFF, are the unsung HEROS. They even helped provide compatibility between disparate software packages, let alone hardware.

[atarian63]

sadly early pc gaming was a trainwreck with mem setups all different for each game, custom himemsys settings and autoexec.bat for each game to get stuff to run.the early stuff was far from standard and yet people put up with it and eventually those days passed. VGA and a basic sound system really got it going, before that it was cga and mono and bleep bloop sound, real crap. Also a piss poor joystick for games of the time.