On 3/1/2016 9:10 PM, whitneys via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
My two cents' worth. Flying Eagle cents, mind you.
The History Micro-Computer Predecessors: The Terminal & The Calculator Datapoint 2200 aut al. HP-85 eg. The Kit Scelbi-8H Mark-8 The Altair/The S-100 aka Attack of the Clones MITS Altair 8800 IMSAI 8080 The Single Board Computer Apple 1 Other SBC/Trainer Heathkit Heathkit H-8 H89/Z-100 You Oughtta be in Cases/The '77 Trinity Processor Tech SOL-20 Apple II The '77 Trinity/Follow-On TRS-80 Model 1 CoCo or other TRS The '77 Trinity/Follow-On Commodore PET VIC-20/C64/C128 (space avail.) The '77 Trinity/Return of the Clones Apple II (see above) Franklin Clone Atari! aka Is My Game Console a Computer? Atari 800 ? The PC/Revenge of the Clones IBM 5150 PC Compaq Portable The PCjr/Son of the Clones PC Jr. Tandy 1000 Now GUIer than ever Apple Lisa Apple Mac 128K/GEOS/GEM/HP NewWave/Windows 1-3 etc.
The Shape of Things to Come (see also You Oughtta be in Cases) The Suitcase Portable IBM 5100 Osborne The Pocket/Handheld Computers Tandy Model 100 eg. Epson HX-20 eg. Lap-Top Computers Grid Compass Data General One eg.
Somehow address foreign developments, which ran in parallel, but dominated in Europe & Japan respectively International MSX BLs BBC Master/Sinclair ZX/Amstrad/non-BBC Acorn Toyotas Hitachi MB/Fujitsu FM/NEC PC-88/NEC PC-98(APC III) also Sony, Sharp systems Citroens Thomson/Oric
The Finale The Last Gasp of the Independents Commodore Amiga/Atari ST/Acorn Archimedes/Sharp X68000/Fujitsu FM Towns/NeXT/Sinclair QL Day of the Clones aka Clone World /The Survivor aka Once and Future King The Compaq '386 Late model Mac
Some Notes: This list is not intended to strictly reflect VCFed possession (I'm not sure what's in there), but also my estimation of significance to the story of Microcomputer history. I probably missed some things too. Especially kits, foreign systems, and foreign kit systems. I identified some themes, already implied by Evans' and others' choices. Mabye they'd make OK info card headings. Word processor unit removed, as addressing that market should reflect some diversity of the systems (Wang, Vydec, Sony etc). Also needs more space. Have to trim anything that was merely sentimental, popular, or cool, or just available in collection for: Technical Innovation, Market Significance, and Historical Narrative.
For instance the Franklin has to go in-- it made ROM copyrightable, if not on purpose. Compaq's 386, beating IBM to the punch, signified more than any other system that the Clones had bested IBM, and would come to dominate. I think the PCjr line can go, but I wanted to make another silly sequel reference. I believe first Fujitsu then the PC-88 were the real dominant market players in Japan; BBC Master was the Apple II of England (fondly remembered school computer), ZX and MSX the real international players, France's never went EU wide. That's five international picks of what I feel should be six or eight. Six would add up to 40 systems total picked above, which it seems is the 20-rack goal, including both shelf levels.
This eludes the history of the midrange/workstation, which gets micro-ed on the inside and out beginning around 1981.
I left two gaps, in as much as I used the Apple II twice and used one Atari only. Systems separated by slashes meant to indicate either/or, as space dictates. I tried to be as ruthless as possible-- I think no platform got more than 2 machines. Despite my predilection for macs, I think you can tell the story with just one (and the LISA) and not even a significant one (the 128k). The early interface is too alike the LISA's to demonstrate/differentiate well to the layman. I confess a soft spot for the Archimedes as we're all running way more ARMs than any other processor these days.
Kudos to anyone who appreciates my stupid Movie/Car refs/Old-Fashioned Hyphen-ization. I hope I didn't do anything improper with the line breaks.
Nice. Quite complete picture there of the progression of machines introduces. Add IBM 5100 (which we have) in the early years. (Evan is probably way ahead of me here) I particularly like the point of the IBM PC emergence- the fight of the z80 / 8088, CP/M vs DOS, and the machines that straddled the two running both processors and both OSs. Which way is it going to go!? Kildall or Gates? Love the drama of that part. We had a lot of that represented before in our business micro room. I used to talk it up a lot in the museum tours. Q: Will the "over and under" exhibits both be operable? I find the early Unix experiments - particularly TRS-80 microsoft's attempt with Xenix . Not sure we have a Model 12 or 16 though. Signficant cause Microsoft perhaps could have had the scene that Linux occupied if they if they stuck with it and played it right. Even the Mac ended up sitting on top of Unix. Or is some application oriented history in order- sort of like exhibits at VCF- ie: what did desktop publishing look like on C64, MAC, PC in their early incarnations? Show them. Or cough cough ... early spreadsheets... :)