[vcf-midatlantic] Pick 34)-ish

[whitneys]

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.
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