800 and even the 400 were mighty expensive. They arrived slightly before 1980 and this was the very start of the home computer era. The price was sky high, and

800 and even the 400 were mighty expensive. They arrived slightly before 1980 and this was the very start of the home computer era. The price was sky high, and it took a few years for the XL and the price wars with Commodore to make home computing truly affordable for the masses. The Polish continued to buy 8-bit XE's when the rest of the first world was moving to 16-bit in the early 90s (68000, 286). They weren't missing out on much in my opinion; I think 16-bit for both computing and consoles didn't add much. Once the 386sx arrived it made the PC truly affordable and capable; the software system was still 16-bit DOS/Win3, and these PC's were ready and waiting for 32-bit software, which with the birth of Linux and BSD catapulted the PC into the true computing age.