On Wed, 9 Oct 2024 at 19:25, Sellam Abraham via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > It sounds like the Apple //e of Europe :D
I think there were more _unofficial_ Spectrum clones than Apple ][ clones. We didn't know about them until after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the rise of the Web though. _Official_ Spectrum variants and compatibles are comparable: maybe under a dozen models in all? The Sinclair ZX series were the Apple II series of Europe: the Apple II was the first sub-$1000 home computer, but $1000 was too expensive for Europeans back then, so the machines that had the impact over here were the first sub-£100 computers, which was where Sinclair led the field and was strongest. For reference, in 1981, £1=$2. So Sinclair made the first sub-$200 home computers. They were sold in America, but to Americans they seemed like toys and they flopped. And Americans being American, they tend to assume that means that they flopped everywhere and were just a footnote, whereas in Britain and Europe, the Sinclair machines sold in the tens of millions, so in the very early years, it was Commodore and Atari that were expensive premium kit that only rich kids had. Apple was the footnote: nobody owned those things -- they cost as much as a car and were not very well-specified. I was a hobbyist from 1981 or so and I don't think I ever saw or knew a single person who had an Apple II. They were like rocking-horse poop. You heard about them, this weird clunky super-expensive low-spec computer that Americans were bafflingly into. We had TRS-80 kit in the Tandy shops, but they were still expensive and few bought them. Loads of people had TI-994As in the early days, because they got really cheap. Because of course most kids just played games, the C64 became big after 3-4 rounds of price cuts, when it dropped to the point that it was only 2x or 3x the price of a Sinclair. PCs were basically unknown outside of prosperous businesses until Amstrad launched the first affordable-to-Brits PC clone: the PC1512 in 1986. 'Til then, if an Apple II cost as much as a used Ford, then a Compaq cost as much as a new Cadillac. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 227612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
