Best PC Clone of the 80's

[simbalion]

Now, I'm not a big fan of the early IBM PC and the clones it spawned, but I think this is an interesting question to post here. What is the best of the PC clones from the 80's? My choice is going to be the Tandy 1000 series. I've had a 1000SX for several years now and it even survived 15 years of being stored in a shed and as of last winter, still worked. The 1000 series just seems quirky enough to get my attention and they also seem to be tough buggers all around, including the monitors. I'd gladly save more of them if someone offered them to me. So, what is your favorite or best PC clone of the 80's?

[The Usotsuki]

As well as being a fan of the Tandy 1000 line, I also liked the Epson Equity line as solid PC clones.

[spacecadet]

The original Gateway 2000 models were pretty insane in quality. A couple of my old roommates had them in the late 80's and early 90's; they were better than anything IBM was making at the time.

 

The Tandy 1000's were interesting in a lot of ways and I have one myself (a 1000RLHD), but I wouldn't put them in that same class of quality.

[JamesD]

If you are talking about anything below a 286...

Some of the generic clones were better than name brands.
They offered turbo modes up to 12 MHz and were as compatible as anything out there.
Since most of the hardware was on expansion cards, they could be configured about any way you want, and you aren't tied to custom hardware that might have compatibility issues.
And now with the card that adds Tandy sound, CF interfaces, etc... they can do almost everything any name brand machine could do.
It would be nice to see a Tandy/VGA graphics card some day though.
I remember a few of them we sold offered a small form factor with integrated serial, and parallel ports, but graphics and sound were still on expansion cards.
If you could find one of those, that would be the best choice IMHO, but I don't even remember any of the names distributors called them by.
Good luck figuring out if a clone is one of the better ones though.


As for name brands...

I thought the original Tandy 1000s had some compatibility issues.
I'm sure that was resolved within a couple revisions though.
I like the all in one EX and HX models, but they have oddball expansion connectors.
The extra graphics modes and sound chip put the 1000 series among the best due to the special versions of many games that support them.

Really, almost everything else available under a name brand was mostly just another clone.
They often integrated the features on to the motherboard, but they didn't offer anything you couldn't find elsewhere.
The Amstrad PC1512 & PC1640, and the SANYO MBC-550 each include their own unique graphics mode, but they don't receive the software support Tandy did.
They are certainly interesting PC machines for collecting though.

If you count 286 or above... Tandy, Compaq, Gateway, etc all work.
Nothing really stands out on these, so take your pick.

[CGQuarterly]

As well as being a fan of the Tandy 1000 line, I also liked the Epson Equity line as solid PC clones.

 

 

I had an Epson Equity as my first computer!

 

Tandy computers were also nice. My friend's grandad had one and ended up giving it to me when he upgraded (it was long since obsolete by then.)

[Nebulon]

Comtex

ALR

AST

Compaq

[+-^CrossBow^-]

My Memorex Telex 7045 was an incredibly solid clone for 10 years nearly! AMD - 286 running at 16mhz but clocked at 20mhz at the time. And it had a special EMM386.exe that came with the custom version of DOS 3.3 from Memorex Telex. It was able to set up expanded memory and run in protected mode? Most programs could be fooled but Windows 3.11 always knew it was a 286 and would only run in real mode at the time. Still tons of memories on that old computer and for the money we spent back in '89 for it...it damn well should have been!

[82-T/A]

In my personal opinion, I'd have to say the KayPro computers were pretty decent. They were pretty complete packages, and well put together. They were expensive, but it was one price and you got it all. I grew up with an 8088 that ran at 4.77 / 8.77 when Turbo was on.

 

I recently got another one that was called a "Triple Speed CPU" and apparently it runs at 10Mhz... crazy.

 

Tandy was really good too... but only because they took the basic concept of the clone and built upon it with standard EGA and 3-Voice polyphony... all in the earliest of them.

 

 

If you are talking about anything below a 286...

Some of the generic clones were better than name brands.
They offered turbo modes up to 12 MHz and were as compatible as anything out there.

 

 

Wow! They made 8088s that ran at 12 Mhz?

[Keatah]

Those turbo buttons did all sorts of tricks aside from adjusting the clock speed.

http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/cripple

[Keatah]

The original Gateway 2000 models were pretty insane in quality. A couple of my old roommates had them in the late 80's and early 90's; they were better than anything IBM was making at the time.

 

The Tandy 1000's were interesting in a lot of ways and I have one myself (a 1000RLHD), but I wouldn't put them in that same class of quality.

 

Indeed. My GW2K rig has gotta weigh at least 40 pounds or more.

 

Not only was the quality of the system excellent. So was the documentation. Got a nice mini 3-ring binder with sections on bios, motherboard, drives, keyboard, drivers, and references. While it is definitely NOT geared toward the hobbyist, no component signal levels or bios disassembly or programming info, it was definitely suited for the task of showing you around and explaining things necessary for UPGRADING your rig. That was the hot thing in the day.

 

And the software manuals, provided by Microsoft - branded by Gateway, were stellar! They explained everything an advanced user and entry level admin would ever want to know. My setup came with at least 10-15 pounds of documentation.

 

The documentation was printed nicely with colored covers and complete with table of contents and index. And comprehensive in explaining the operation of whatever it was you were operating. Again, like the 8-bit machines that came before, the documentation was complete - if targeted at a different style of user.

 

It wouldn't be long after the Pentium II era that documentation transitioned to being "online". In this context it means a help file electronically accessible, like a DOC or PDF or CHM. I suppose it was the next phase is cost cutting. No longer would computer companies need to ship 5 kilos of manuals with a system.

 

But we're not done. Soon many companies and idies stopped doing that even. Citing it cost too much to maintain. And they went "online" for real. Meaning that no helpfile was included. You had to connect to a webserver of some kind. When asked about this specific transition, most everyone replied it cost to much to maintain a local help file. Both in terms of time to prepare it and money to distribute it. BULLSHIT! Buncha lazy asses is what it is.

 

Maintaining a CHM or PDF is no more costly than keeping space on a dedicated help server. In fact, the locally produced and used document is cheaper. Now isn't it..?

 

Some devs commented that it is easier to update and keep current as errata are issued and new ways of doing things are discovered. User ideas could be easier implemented and distributed in an online doc. Can't argue with that. But even then that stopped and users today are often left with nothing more than a quick-start guide printed on tissue paper.

 

Complete and thorough documentation is important. I can't stress that enough because it lends significant substance to your software and hardware.

 

---

 

For a brief moment Adobe had done a decent fusion of both online documentation and locally stored help files. You would get a local copy of the PDF manual. And it would be automatically updated on occasion through their help center. You could also get additional content like brushes and palettes that way, too, and even participate in user forums IIRC. It was like a custom browser thing. Not ideal. Not necessary. But still somewhat functional.

 

Then one day they stopped providing the online stuff for discontinued products. Ok. Fair enough. But in their infinite-fucking-wisdom, they deleted the help content from your local drive too!

 

So the lesson here is to keep any online documentation safe and away from idle hands looking to do something just to do it.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Keatah

[CatPix]

Not sure about the best - it's a rather loose word, heh? Bes in quality, in price, in compatibility? In design and user-friendliness?

 

In the second half of the 80's, Amstrad PC-compatibles were huge. And for a reason. Several ones, even.

First, they had good compatibility with IBM PC standard, which is an important feture after all.

Second, they were designed for home use, so they came with several, unique features compared to most other PC compatibles :

Early models had a high density plastic case, rather than a heavy metal case. It make the units eerily light.

All Amstrad PC compatibles had a volume knob to control the PC speaker. They all came with an Amstrad mouse and a GUI (first GEM, later Windows 3). Early models had the power supply located in the monitor, meaning that one wire only was needed to power the computer (admittedly, with pass-through PC power supplies, PC achieved this too.)

Several models had a "joystick" connector on the keyboard. This connector was compatible with computer/Atari joysticks, and the pinw were mapped to unused keys of the keyboard, meaning that any PC game allowing to remap the key could use a joystick.

And of course, Amstrad PC were CHEAP.

 

Amstrad PC 1512, available with or without hard drive :

 

1512 stading for the 512 Ko of RAM. The 1640 would come later, with, of course, 640Ko of RAM.

A later series would be the 2*86 series, this time using the CPU for model names, 2086 being 8086 based, 2286 based on 80286, etc...

 

They last PCs would conforme more to IBM PC Standard, dropping the "one power wire" philosophy; the 5*86 series would have separate power supplies in the unit and monitor; also, having a VGA output rather than EGA meant they are still useable today.

And their sheer small size make them being nice retrogaming machines, as they also included a sound card, keeping the PC Speaker knob and also included a joystick on a standard interface :

 

[JamesD]

 

Wow! They made 8088s that ran at 12 Mhz?

That may have required overclocking, but I'm not certain.

[GlowingGhoul]

AST made the highest build quality clones, imho.

[dafivehole]

My first foray into PC's was with an Amstrad PC1512 in the late 80's. It had the dual floppy drive (no hard drive) and, looking back on it today, it seems pretty damn archaic.

 

Funny thing is that I purchased it at Dilliards (in Fort Worth, TX) of all places... I never knew they sold computers. This would be like buying a new PC at Macy's today.

 

Lot of good memories with that computer though... at the time, it was such a huge upgrade from my 800XL setup It bridged the gap until I got my 386 Compudyne PC at CompUSA years later

 

Roger

[spacecadet]

It's amazing how much of computing is regional. I had never heard of Amstrad until just a few years ago. I guess they must have sold them in the US, but I think they were much more of a European company.

 

The PC clone brands I actually remember from the 80's were AST, Acer, Gateway 2000, Dell, Compaq, Tandy, and Packard Bell. Acer and AST were both Asian companies so I remember people being pleasantly surprised by them, but they didn't really start to take off in the US until the very late 80's.

 

I'm pretty sure I started buying Computer Shopper sometime in the mid to late 80's and there were already a multitude of smaller clone makers in there (these often seemed to literally be people buying components and putting them together in their basement, then reselling them). So the ones I remember certainly aren't the only ones that existed. But I believe they were the biggest ones.

[CatPix]

Amstrad is an UK company, yes (to my understanding, they still exist, tho they are no longer in computer).

They tried to export to the US but their understanding of the US market was very poor and their marketing strategies that worked well in Europe were not received well in the US.

But in Europe, Amstrad managed to sell 2 millions CPC (as compared to the 5 millions of ZX Spectrum sold) and a whopping 8 millions of Amstrad PCW professional CP/M machines.

I haven't found any figure for their PC sales, but finding an Amstrad Pc-compatible isn't hard at all, at leat in the UK and France (haven't looked in other countries) they are easier to find than IBM machines of the same era (which can be explained easily as IBM were targeted to businesses and Amstrad to home consumers).

I guess that many of the Amstrad peculiarities made them harder to market in the US, such as the "in monitor" PSU thing, especially for the CPC series that were in 50 htz in the US, making them impossible to use on a standard US TV set.

 

In regional companies that made PC clones, there was also Bull, Zenith Data System (property of Bull after 1989), Logabax, SMT Goupil. There were probably several more in the UK, in Germany, etc...

Tho none of those were as famous or high selling than Amstrad.

Bull was targeted to the French research/high school/army and so their computer were very expensive, with specilized hardware, compatible for example with GCOS operation systems from Bull-Honeywell.

Zenith Data system was more targeted (after Bull acquired them) to education industries; cheaper, more generic IBM clones but not quite easily available fror the ordinary customer.

Logabax and SMT Goupil mostly sold to small schools and small administrative bodies, tho being the cheapest they were often acquired by consumers, especially if they were familiar with the brand from their job.

Of those brands, only Bull survive, but they haven't made a single PC-compatible computer since 1996 when Bull left the brand and assets of Packard-Bell and NEC. They only make supercalculators now. That can still operate under GCOS

Edited December 14, 2016 by CatPix