7 ms·

This was the time of the Turbo-button. Programs were made for 4.77 MHz IBM PC, so you had to slowdown the 30 MHz by default. The Turbo speed was mostly useless,

This was the time of the Turbo-button. Programs were made for 4.77 MHz IBM PC, so you had to slowdown the 30 MHz by default. The Turbo speed was mostly useless, and so it seemed to be the ultimate end of computer development. Achually for 10 years nothing exciting happened. Until maybe 1992 when you could install your very own Unix.

chrisco255 5y ago
I always wondered why the desktop revolution didn't really take off until the 90s after seeing that the Mac was released in the early 80s.
- dole 5y ago
  Windows for Workgroups/NT.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Cheap IBM PC clones running pirated videogames on Windows sparked the "real" boom of PCs in homes. Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake etc.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Some of that code is till being parroted by Copilot! https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309
- timonoko 5y ago
  In 1988 I watched when they tried to use the Smalltalk environment with its windowing system in software production. It was very robust and well for a week, but then it just choked up. Not enough memory and virtual too slow.
  - igouy 5y ago
    In 1988 I developed a production planning / scheduling tool with Smalltalk/V 286 on a PC/AT with 1MB of extended memory. iirc Still being used on a daily basis, 5 years later. http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial/SmalltalkVTutorial.pdf http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial/S... https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=digitalk+smalltalk+v/286&source=bl&ots=jg-JNM2df5&sig=zCZ6zSeRV1zcLMT_VhaK49_YWkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFIQ6AEwB2oVChMIh-Xi5qS9xwIVkCWICh1taQpK https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P...
- tkgally 5y ago
  One reason was the rise of the Internet. While there were a lot of neat things you could do with a personal computer, it wasn’t until you could connect easily to others that it really became fun and useful for most people. I got my first computer, a Mac, in 1986. That was exciting for me, but I really felt that the revolution had happened when I got a modem in 1992 and connected first to a local BBS and then, a couple of years later, to the Internet itself.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Yes, before that the only reason normal people bought a computer was to run Quicken.
- fzzzy 5y ago
  The Mac was really, really expensive in the 80s.
- tejtm 5y ago
  For me it was Amigas instead of Macs but it seemed I could get another computer cheaper than I could a C compiler. Then there was this new BBS in town called "www" or something and it had this free C compiler ...
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> Achually for 10 years nothing exciting happened. Until maybe 1992 when you could install your very own Unix. What was happening in the span 1982-1992 was that everything imaginable was coming out as a peripheral for the IBM PC. It wasn't just stuff like disks and printers and graphics cards. Month after month you'd see something new, and realize "Yeah, I guess you could do that as a computer peripheral", but it would be something that you never dreamed of that way before. And all that stuff enabled a ton of software. It was an explosion of new capabilities.
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  Its crazy to me that a tech forum poster would consider the incredibly innovative years of 1982-1992 as nothing because his preferred OS didn't exist yet. 1982: Commodore 64 1983: Apple //e 1984: Macintosh 1985: Amiga 1986: 386-based PCs 1987: Hypercard and Acorn Archimedes 1988: NeXT cube 1989: 486 released. Deep Thought defeats its first master, WorldWideWeb released 1990: Power Processor, Gopher, EFF founded 1991: PGP, AM386, Python and that ignores the incredible BBS and shareware scene that blossomed at that time. A lot was going on in the mid to late 80s in the PC world.
  - flomo 5y ago
    It was a different time, when most of those new things came out, they were more expensive than whatever proceeded them (in a sense). Individuals weren't buying $10,000 Macintoshes, $20,000 NeXTCubes, and $30,000 UNIX/RISC workstations. My communist professor was bragging his SPARCstation was more expensive than a Mercedes! The low-end got cheaper only very slowly. In 1990 you could go into a computer store and drop a couple grand on a slightly better version of a PC-XT or original Mac, ancient tech at that point. This all changed very fast in the early 90s with 386/486 and Windows got cheap fast and crashed into the consumer market. Most of the above died or almost died in the process.
    - haakon 5y ago
      Home computers in the eighties weren't that expensive. That was the whole point – you could actually have a computer in your home now. Kids got them for Christmas.
mkl 5y ago
30MHz in 1987? Not many people had such luxury. My family bought a ~12MHz 286 brand new in ~1992, and our 25MHz 486 was still years away (but yes, they had turbo buttons, and the 486 even had an LCD display showing the current frequency).
cesaref 5y ago
Back in '87, we're talking 386 territory for cutting edge compute, so I think we were limited to 25Mhz. As has been pointed out, those machines were expensive. Pulling out an old PC World magazine from '89 I see that a 386/25Mhz based IBM PS2 was selling for over £4k, and that was with a mono screen. More typical home machines were the clones, like Amstrads which were typically 512k 286/10Mhz machines were either dual 5 1/4 floppy or if you really rolled out the boat, a floppy/hd combo. I stuck to home computers rather than business machines due to the prohibitive expense of the above, and only saw decent machines which would in any way reflect modern computers when I got to university in '89. When you've been struggling with an Amiga with a floppy drive, a room full of Sun 3s was a thing of wonder!

chrisco255 5y ago

I always wondered why the desktop revolution didn't really take off until the 90s after seeing that the Mac was released in the early 80s.

dole 5y ago
Windows for Workgroups/NT.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Cheap IBM PC clones running pirated videogames on Windows sparked the "real" boom of PCs in homes. Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake etc.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Some of that code is till being parroted by Copilot! https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309 https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/1410886329924194309
timonoko 5y ago
In 1988 I watched when they tried to use the Smalltalk environment with its windowing system in software production. It was very robust and well for a week, but then it just choked up. Not enough memory and virtual too slow.
- igouy 5y ago
  In 1988 I developed a production planning / scheduling tool with Smalltalk/V 286 on a PC/AT with 1MB of extended memory. iirc Still being used on a daily basis, 5 years later. http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial/SmalltalkVTutorial.pdf http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial/S... https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=digitalk+smalltalk+v/286&source=bl&ots=jg-JNM2df5&sig=zCZ6zSeRV1zcLMT_VhaK49_YWkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFIQ6AEwB2oVChMIh-Xi5qS9xwIVkCWICh1taQpK https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P...
tkgally 5y ago
One reason was the rise of the Internet. While there were a lot of neat things you could do with a personal computer, it wasn’t until you could connect easily to others that it really became fun and useful for most people. I got my first computer, a Mac, in 1986. That was exciting for me, but I really felt that the revolution had happened when I got a modem in 1992 and connected first to a local BBS and then, a couple of years later, to the Internet itself.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Yes, before that the only reason normal people bought a computer was to run Quicken.
fzzzy 5y ago
The Mac was really, really expensive in the 80s.
tejtm 5y ago
For me it was Amigas instead of Macs but it seemed I could get another computer cheaper than I could a C compiler. Then there was this new BBS in town called "www" or something and it had this free C compiler ...

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> Achually for 10 years nothing exciting happened. Until maybe 1992 when you could install your very own Unix. What was happening in the span 1982-1992 was that everything imaginable was coming out as a peripheral for the IBM PC. It wasn't just stuff like disks and printers and graphics cards. Month after month you'd see something new, and realize "Yeah, I guess you could do that as a computer peripheral", but it would be something that you never dreamed of that way before. And all that stuff enabled a ton of software. It was an explosion of new capabilities.

drzaiusapelord 5y ago
Its crazy to me that a tech forum poster would consider the incredibly innovative years of 1982-1992 as nothing because his preferred OS didn't exist yet. 1982: Commodore 64 1983: Apple //e 1984: Macintosh 1985: Amiga 1986: 386-based PCs 1987: Hypercard and Acorn Archimedes 1988: NeXT cube 1989: 486 released. Deep Thought defeats its first master, WorldWideWeb released 1990: Power Processor, Gopher, EFF founded 1991: PGP, AM386, Python and that ignores the incredible BBS and shareware scene that blossomed at that time. A lot was going on in the mid to late 80s in the PC world.
- flomo 5y ago
  It was a different time, when most of those new things came out, they were more expensive than whatever proceeded them (in a sense). Individuals weren't buying $10,000 Macintoshes, $20,000 NeXTCubes, and $30,000 UNIX/RISC workstations. My communist professor was bragging his SPARCstation was more expensive than a Mercedes! The low-end got cheaper only very slowly. In 1990 you could go into a computer store and drop a couple grand on a slightly better version of a PC-XT or original Mac, ancient tech at that point. This all changed very fast in the early 90s with 386/486 and Windows got cheap fast and crashed into the consumer market. Most of the above died or almost died in the process.
  - haakon 5y ago
    Home computers in the eighties weren't that expensive. That was the whole point – you could actually have a computer in your home now. Kids got them for Christmas.

mkl 5y ago

30MHz in 1987? Not many people had such luxury. My family bought a ~12MHz 286 brand new in ~1992, and our 25MHz 486 was still years away (but yes, they had turbo buttons, and the 486 even had an LCD display showing the current frequency).

cesaref 5y ago

Back in '87, we're talking 386 territory for cutting edge compute, so I think we were limited to 25Mhz. As has been pointed out, those machines were expensive. Pulling out an old PC World magazine from '89 I see that a 386/25Mhz based IBM PS2 was selling for over £4k, and that was with a mono screen. More typical home machines were the clones, like Amstrads which were typically 512k 286/10Mhz machines were either dual 5 1/4 floppy or if you really rolled out the boat, a floppy/hd combo. I stuck to home computers rather than business machines due to the prohibitive expense of the above, and only saw decent machines which would in any way reflect modern computers when I got to university in '89. When you've been struggling with an Amiga with a floppy drive, a room full of Sun 3s was a thing of wonder!