Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single, non-technical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific, or engineering-oriented computers of the time, such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC , and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were word processing , playing video games , and programming .
132-678: The SVI-728 is the first home computer from Spectravideo that complied fully with the MSX home computer specification. It was introduced in 1984. The design is virtually identical to that of the earlier SV-328 , which did not comply fully with the MSX standard. The SVI-738 is a portable version of this computer. The SVI-728 had the following technical specifications: Home computer Home computers were usually sold already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. However, some home computers also came as commercial electronic kits , like
264-493: A disk drive (the Commodore 1541 was the only fully-compatible model) or Datasette before they could make use of it as anything but a game machine or TV Typewriter . In the early part of the 1980s, the dominant microprocessors used in home computers were the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 (Apple, Commodore, Atari, BBC Micro ) and Zilog Z80 ( TRS-80 , ZX81 , ZX Spectrum , Commodore 128 , Amstrad CPC ). One exception
396-533: A phone connector converts the electrical signals to be read by the tape head, while mechanical gears simulate reel to reel movement without actual tapes when driven by the player mechanism. In order to wind up the tape more reliably, the former BASF (from 1998 EMTEC ) patented the Special Mechanism or Security Mechanism advertised with the abbreviation SM in the early 1970s, which was temporarily used under license by Agfa . This feature each includes
528-427: A 6502 processor and ran DOS from internal ROM. While this gave Commodore systems some advanced capabilities – a utility program could sideload a disk copy routine onto the drive and return control to the user while the drive copied the disk on its own – it also made Commodore drives more expensive and difficult to clone. Many home computers had a cartridge interface which accepted ROM-based software. This
660-651: A US affiliate of Philips, introduced M.C. to the US in July 1966. The initial offering consisted of 49 titles. However, the system had been designed initially for dictation and portable use, with the audio quality of early players not well suited for music. Some early models also had an unreliable mechanical design. In 1971, the Advent Corporation introduced their Model 201 tape deck that combined Dolby type B noise reduction and chromium(IV) oxide (CrO 2 ) tape, with
792-609: A boom in bootleg cassettes made at live shows in the 1980s. The Walkman dominated the decade, selling up to 350 million units. So synonymous did the name "Walkman" become with all portable music players—with a German dictionary at one point defining the term as such without reference to Sony—that the Austrian Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that Sony, which had not sought to have the publisher of that dictionary retract that definition, could not prevent other companies from using that name, as it had now become genericized. As
924-538: A built-in keyboard to support its C7420 Home Computer Module. Among third-generation consoles , Nintendo 's Family Computer offered Family BASIC (sold only in Japan), which included a keyboard that could be connected to an external tape recorder to load and store programs. Books of type-in program listings like BASIC Computer Games were available, dedicated for the BASICs of most models of computer, with titles along
1056-409: A cassette. Very simple cassette recorders for dictation purposes did not tightly control tape speed and relied on playback on a similar device to maintain intelligible recordings. For accurate reproduction of music, a tape transport incorporating a capstan and pinch roller system was used, to ensure tape passed over the record/playback heads at a constant speed. If the cassette is held with one of
1188-723: A commercial-grade tape transport mechanism supplied by the Wollensak camera division of 3M Corporation. This resulted in the format being taken more seriously for musical use, and started the era of high fidelity cassettes and players. British record labels began releasing compact cassettes in October 1967, and they exploded as a mass-market medium after the first Walkman , the TPS-L2, went on sale on 1 July 1979, as cassettes provided portability, which vinyl records could not. While portable radios and boom boxes had been around for some time,
1320-604: A common category of utility software in this pre- DMCA era. In another defining characteristic of the home computer, instead of a command line , the BASIC interpreter served double duty as a user interface. Coupled to a character-based screen or line editor , BASIC's file management commands could be entered in direct mode . In contrast to modern computers, home computers most often had their operating system (OS) stored in ROM chips. This made startup times very fast (no more than
1452-399: A continuation of the increasingly slower speed series in open-reel machines operating at 30, 15, 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 , or 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 inches per second. For comparison, the typical open-reel 1 ⁄ 4 -inch 4-track consumer format used tape that is 0.248 inches (6.3 mm) wide, each track .043 in (1.1 mm) wide, and running at either twice or four times the speed of
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#17327801536441584-540: A continuous demand for English language cassettes, as of 2011, due to the affordable cost. National Audio Company in Missouri, the largest of the few remaining manufacturers of audio cassettes in the US, oversaw the mass production of the "Awesome Mix #1" cassette from the film Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. They reported that they had produced more than 10 million tapes in 2014 and that sales were up 20 percent
1716-576: A dedicated phone line operated bulletin boards of their own. This capability anticipated the internet by nearly 20 years. Some game consoles offered "programming packs" consisting of a version of BASIC in a ROM cartridge . Atari's BASIC Programming for the Atari 2600 was one of these. For the ColecoVision console, Coleco even announced an expansion module which would convert it into a full-fledged computer system. The Magnavox Odyssey² console had
1848-437: A double-coating technique to enhance overall tape output levels. This product was marketed as "High Energy" under its Scotch brand of recording tapes. Inexpensive cassettes commonly are labeled "low-noise", but typically are not optimized for high frequency response . For this reason, some low-grade IEC Type I tapes have been marketed specifically as better suited for data storage than for sound recording. In 1968, DuPont ,
1980-637: A few seconds), but made OS upgrades difficult or impossible without buying a new unit. Usually, only the most severe bugs were fixed by issuing new ROMs to replace the old ones at the user's cost. In addition, the small size and limited scope of home computer "operating systems" (really little more than what today would be called a kernel) left little room for bugs to hide. Although modern operating systems include extensive programming libraries to ease development and promote standardization, home computer operating systems provided little support to application programs. Professionally-written software often switched out
2112-470: A first for a stand-alone computer, costing far less than dedicated motion-video processing equipment costing many thousands of dollars. Stereo sound became standard for the first time; the Atari ST gained popularity as an affordable alternative for MIDI equipment for the production of music. Clock rates on the 68000-based systems were approximately 8 MHz with RAM capacities of 256 kB (for
2244-591: A floppy disk drive. It was available for the TRS-80 and some others. A closely-related technology was the ZX Microdrive , developed by Sinclair Research in the UK, for their ZX Spectrum and QL home computers. Eventually, mass production of 5.25" drives resulted in lower prices, and after about 1984, they pushed cassette drives out of the US home computer market. 5.25" floppy disk drives would remain standard until
2376-501: A foothold for Western culture among the younger generations. Likewise, in Egypt cassettes empowered an unprecedented number of people to create culture, circulate information, and challenge ruling regimes before the internet became publicly accessible. One of the political uses of cassette tapes was the dissemination of sermons by the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini throughout Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution , in which Khomeini urged
2508-432: A game now and then, learn more about computers, and help educate their children". By 1986, industry experts predicted an "MS-DOS Christmas", and the magazine stated that clones threatened Commodore, Atari, and Apple's domination of the home-computer market. The declining cost of IBM compatibles on the one hand, and the greatly-increased graphics, sound, and storage abilities of fourth generation video game consoles such as
2640-732: A great deal of software support from the traditional Japanese publishers of game software. Microsoft developed the MSX-DOS operating system, a version of their popular MS-DOS adapted to the architecture of these machines, that was also able to run CP/M software directly After the first wave of game consoles and computers landed in American homes, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began receiving complaints of electromagnetic interference to television reception. By 1979
2772-473: A high performer, the Equity was a reliable and compatible design for half the price of a similarly-configured IBM PC. Epson often promoted sales by bundling one of their printers with it at cost. The Equity I sold well enough to warrant the furtherance of the Equity line with the follow-on Equity II and Equity III. In 1986, UK home computer maker Amstrad began producing their PC1512 PC-compatible for sale in
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#17327801536442904-418: A home automation appliance would require the computer to be kept powered on at all times and dedicated to this task. Personal finance and database use required tedious data entry . By contrast, advertisements in the specialty computer press often simply listed specifications, assuming a knowledgeable user who already had applications in mind. If no packaged software was available for a particular application,
3036-415: A home television. Indeed, the use of a television set as a display almost defines the pre-PC home computer. Although dedicated composite or " green screen " computer displays were available for this market segment and offered a sharper display, a monitor was often a later purchase made only after users had bought a floppy disk drive, printer, modem, and the other pieces of a full system. The reason for this
3168-668: A host of other manufacturers. For many of these businesses, the development of the microcomputer made computing and business software affordable where they had not been before. Introduced in August 1981, the IBM Personal Computer would eventually supplant CP/M as the standard platform used in business. This was largely due to the IBM name and the system's 16 bit open architecture , which expanded maximum memory tenfold, and also encouraged production of third-party clones . In
3300-474: A keyboard integrated into the same case as the motherboard , or, more frequently, a mainboard . While the expandable home computers appeared from the very start (the Apple II offered as many as seven expansion slots) as the whole segment was generally aimed downmarket , few offers were priced or positioned high enough to allow for such expandability. Some systems have only one expansion port, often realized in
3432-410: A large margin. Philips was competing with Telefunken and Grundig (with their DC International format ) in a race to establish its cassette tape as the worldwide standard, and it wanted support from Japanese electronics manufacturers. Philips' Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Sony pressuring Philips to license the format to them free of charge. In the early years sound quality
3564-419: A lesser extent in hardcore punk , death metal , and black metal circles, out of a fondness for the format. Even among major-label stars, the form has at least one devotee: Thurston Moore stated in 2009, "I only listen to cassettes." By 2019, few companies still made cassettes. Among those are National Audio Company, from the US, and Mulann, also known as Recording The Masters, from France. Sony announced
3696-637: A palette of 512. MSX was a standard for a home computing architecture that was intended and hoped to become a universal platform for home computing. It was conceived, engineered and marketed by Microsoft Japan with ASCII Corporation . Computers conforming to the MSX standard were produced by most all major Japanese electronics manufacturers, as well as two Korean ones and several others in Europe and South America. Some 5 million units are known to have been sold in Japan alone. They sold in smaller numbers throughout
3828-456: A period in the 1990s. Another barrier to cassettes overtaking vinyl in sales was shoplifting ; compact cassettes were small enough that a thief could easily place one inside a pocket and walk out of a shop without being noticed. To prevent this, retailers in the US would place cassettes inside oversized "spaghetti box" containers or locked display cases , either of which would significantly inhibit browsing, thus reducing cassette sales. During
3960-433: A place to plug in cartridge-based games. Usually, the manufacturer would sell peripheral devices designed to be compatible with their computers as extra-cost accessories. Peripherals and software were not often interchangeable between different brands of home computer, or even between successive models of the same brand. To save the cost of a dedicated monitor, the home computer would often connect through an RF modulator to
4092-491: A program that allowed businesses to sell computers tax-free to its employees, often accompanied by home training programs. Naturally, these businesses chose to equip their employees with the same systems they themselves were using. Today, a computer bought for home use anywhere will be very similar to those used in offices; made by the same manufacturers, with compatible peripherals, operating systems, and application software. Many home computers were superficially similar. Most had
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4224-423: A protective plastic shell which is 4 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (10.2 cm × 6.35 cm × 1.27 cm) at its largest dimensions. The tape itself is commonly referred to as "eighth-inch" tape, supposedly 1 ⁄ 8 inch (0.125 in; 3.17 mm) wide, but actually slightly larger, at 0.15 inches (3.81 mm). Two stereo pairs of tracks (four total) or two monaural audio tracks are available on
4356-506: A reboot to use the system for something else. In an enduring reflection of their early cassette-oriented nature, most home computers loaded their disk operating system (DOS) separately from the main OS. The DOS was only used for disk and file-related commands and was not required to perform other computing functions. One exception was Commodore DOS , which was not loaded into the computer's main memory at all – Commodore disk drives contained
4488-460: A result of this, a number of Sony's competitors produced their own version of the Walkman. Others made their own branded tape players, like JVC, Panasonic, Sharp, and Aiwa, the second-largest producer of the devices. Between 1985, when cassettes overtook vinyl, and 1992, when they were overtaken by CDs (introduced in 1983 as a format that offered greater storage capacity and more accurate sound),
4620-563: A standard of its own, known as Tandy Graphics Adapter or TGA. Later, Tandy produced Tandy 1000 variants in form factors and price-points even more suited to the home computer market, comprised particularly by the Tandy 1000 EX and HX models (later supplanted by the 1000 RL ), which came in cases resembling the original Apple IIs (CPU, keyboard, expansion slots, and power supply in a slimline cabinet) but also included floppy disk drives. The proprietary Deskmate productivity suite came bundled with
4752-456: A trend that continued in 2017 and 2018. In the UK, sales of cassette tapes in 2021 reached its highest number since 2003. Cassettes are favored by some artists and listeners, including those of older genres of music such as dansband , as well as independent and underground artists , some of whom were releasing new music on tape by the 2020s, including Britney Spears and Busta Rhymes . Reasons cited for this include tradition, low cost,
4884-485: A turbo NEC V40 CPU (up-rated 8088) which was rather slow for its time, but the video monitor did feature 400-pixel vertical resolution. This unique computer failed for the same reasons as did IBM's PCjr: poor performance and expandability, and a price too high for the home market. Another company that offered low-cost PCs for home use was Leading Edge , with their Model M and Model D computers. These were configured like full-featured business PCs, yet still could compete in
5016-414: Is 0.15 in (3.81 mm) wide, with each mono track 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in) wide, plus an unrecorded guard band between each track. In stereo, each track is further divided into a left and a right channel of 0.6 mm (0.024 in) each, with a gap of 0.3 mm (0.012 in). The tape moves past the playback head at 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 inches per second (4.76 cm/s), the speed being
5148-591: Is 3.8 mm. For mono recording the track width is 1.5 mm. In stereo mode each channel has width of 0.6 mm with a 0.3 mm separation to avoid crosstalk . The head-gap width is 2 μm which gives a theoretical maximum frequency of about 12 kHz (at the standard speed of 1 7/8 ips or 4.76 cm/s). A narrower gap would give a higher frequency limit but also weaker magnetization. Cassette tape adapters allow external audio sources to be played back from any tape player, but were typically used for car audio systems. An attached audio cable with
5280-486: Is normally used to refer to the Compact Cassette because of its ubiquity. Compact Cassettes contain two miniature spools, between which the magnetically coated, polyester -type plastic film (magnetic tape) is passed and wound —essentially miniaturizing reel-to-reel audio tape and enclosing it, with its reels, in a small case (cartridge)—hence "cassette". These spools and their attendant parts are held inside
5412-609: The Atari 1040ST (not the 520ST), Amiga , and Tandy 1000 , did house floppy drive(s) internally. At any rate, to expand any computer with additional floppy drives, external units would have to be plugged in. Toward the end of the home computer era, drives for a number of home computer models appeared offering disk-format compatibility with the IBM PC. The disk drives sold with the Commodore 128, Amiga, and Atari ST were all able to read and write PC disks, which themselves were undergoing
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5544-830: The Berlin Radio Show , and in the United States (under the Norelco brand) in November 1964. The trademark name Compact Cassette came a year later. The team of Dutch and Belgian origin at Philips was led by the Dutch Lou Ottens in Hasselt , Belgium. Philips also offered a machine to play and record the cassettes, the Philips Typ EL 3300 . An updated model, Typ EL 3301 was offered in
5676-468: The Commodore PET , and the original Apple II in 1977, almost every manufacturer of consumer electronics rushed to introduce a home computer. Large numbers of new machines of all types began to appear during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mattel , Coleco , Texas Instruments , and Timex , none of which had any prior connection to the computer industry, all had short-lived home computer lines in
5808-494: The DIY ease of use, and a nostalgic fondness for how the format's imperfections lend greater vibrancy to low-fi, experimental music, despite the lack of the "full-bodied richness" of vinyl. Cassette tapes are made of a polyester-type plastic film with a magnetic coating. The original magnetic material was based on gamma ferric oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ). Circa 1970, 3M Company developed a cobalt volume-doping process combined with
5940-530: The Dutch company Philips , the Compact Cassette was released in August 1963. Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either containing content as a prerecorded cassette ( Musicassette ), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms have two sides and are reversible by the user. Although other tape cassette formats have also existed—for example the Microcassette —the generic term cassette tape
6072-465: The Motorola 68008 with its external 8-bit bus). Graphics resolutions approximately doubled to give roughly NTSC -class resolution, and color palettes increased from dozens to hundreds or thousands of colors available. The Amiga was built with a custom chipset with dedicated graphics and sound coprocessors for high-performance video and audio. The Amiga found use as a workstation for desktop video ,
6204-556: The Nintendo Entertainment System , but no longer sold home computers. Toward the end of the 1980s, clones also became popular with non-corporate customers. Inexpensive, highly-compatible clones succeeded where the PCjr had failed. Replacing the hobbyists who had made up the majority of the home computer market were, as Compute! described them, "people who want to take work home from the office now and then, play
6336-484: The PCjr as a PC/DOS-compatible machine aimed squarely at the home user. It proved a spectacular failure because IBM deliberately limited its capabilities and expansion possibilities in order to avoid cannibalizing sales of the profitable PC. IBM management believed that if they made the PCjr too powerful, too many buyers would prefer it over the bigger, more expensive PC. Poor reviews in the computer press and poor sales doomed
6468-765: The Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) made use of cassettes to spread their messages. Cassette technology was a booming market for pop music in India , drawing criticism from conservatives while at the same time creating a huge market for legitimate recording companies, as well as pirated tapes. Some sales channels were associated with cassettes: in Spain filling stations often featured a display selling cassettes. While offering also mainstream music these cassettes became associated with genres such as Gipsy rhumba , light music and joke tapes that were common in
6600-554: The Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System on the other, combined to cause the market segment for home computers to vanish by the early 1990s in the US. In Europe, the home computer remained a distinct presence for a few years more, with the low-end models of the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST families being the dominant players, but by the mid-1990s, even the European market had dwindled. The Dutch government even ran
6732-480: The Sinclair ZX80 , which were both home and home-built computers since the purchaser could assemble the unit from a kit. Advertisements in the popular press for early home computers were rife with possibilities for their practical use in the home, from cataloging recipes to personal finance to home automation , but these were seldom realized in practice. For example, using a typical 1980s home computer as
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#17327801536446864-474: The integrated circuits , other individual electronic components, wires and connectors, and then hand- solder all the connections. While two early home computers ( Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom ) could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. They were enclosed in plastic or metal cases similar in appearance to typewriter or hi-fi equipment enclosures, which were more familiar and attractive to consumers than
6996-446: The 1970s and 1980s. Despite sales of CDs overtaking those of prerecorded cassettes in the early 1990s in the U.S., the format remained popular for specific applications, such as car audio , personal stereos , boomboxes , telephone answering machines , dictation , field recording , home recording , and mixtapes well into the decade. Cassette players were typically more resistant to shocks than CD players, and their lower fidelity
7128-541: The Atari and Commodore 8-bit machines, coprocessors were added to speed processing of graphics and audio data. For these computers, clock rate was considered a technical detail of interest only to users needing accurate timing for their own programs. To economize on component cost, often the same crystal used to produce color television-compatible signals was also divided down and used for the processor clock. This meant processors rarely operated at their full rated speed, and had
7260-534: The BASIC interpreter was also used as the user interface , and given tasks such as loading, saving, managing, and running files. One exception was the Jupiter Ace , which had a Forth interpreter instead of BASIC. A built-in programming language was seen as a requirement for any computer of the era, and was the main feature setting home computers apart from video game consoles . Still, home computers competed in
7392-471: The FCC demanded that home computer makers submit samples for radio frequency interference testing. It was found that "first generation" home computers emitted too much radio frequency noise for household use. The Atari 400 and 800 were designed with heavy RF shielding to meet the new requirements. Between 1980 and 1982 regulations governing RF emittance from home computers were phased in. Some companies appealed to
7524-454: The FCC to waive the requirements for home computers, while others (with compliant designs) objected to the waiver. Eventually techniques to suppress interference became standardized. Cassette tape The Compact Cassette , also commonly called a cassette tape , audio cassette , or simply tape or cassette , is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback . Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at
7656-526: The Macintosh itself was too expensive for most households. The Amiga in particular had true multitasking capability, and unlike all other low-cost computers of the era, could run multiple applications in their own windows. The second generation of MSX computers (MSX2) achieved the performance of high-performance computers using a high-speed video processor ( Yamaha V9938 ) capable of handling resolutions of 512 × 424 pixels, and 256 simultaneous colors from
7788-411: The PCjr. Tandy Corporation capitalized on IBM's blunder with its PCjr-compatible Tandy 1000 in November. Like the PCjr, it was pitched as a home, education, and small-business computer, featuring joystick ports, better sound and graphics (same as the PCjr but with enhancements), combined with near-PC/DOS compatibility (unlike Tandy's earlier Tandy 2000 ). The improved Tandy 1000 video hardware became
7920-519: The ROM-based OS anyway to free the address space it occupied and maximize RAM capacity. This gave the program full control of the hardware and allowed the programmer to optimize performance for a specific task. Games would often turn off unused I/O ports, as well as the interrupts that served them. As multitasking was never common on home computers, this practice went largely unnoticed by users. Most software even lacked an exit command, requiring
8052-549: The Tandy 1000s. Deskmate was suited to use by computer novices with its point-and-click (though not graphical) user interface. From the launch of the Tandy 1000 series, their manufacture were price-competitive because of Tandy's use of high-density ASIC chip technology, which allowed their engineers to integrate many hardware features into the motherboard (obviating the need for circuit cards in expansion slots as with other brands of PC). Tandy never transferred its manufacturing operation to Asia; all Tandy desktop computers were built in
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#17327801536448184-664: The UK. Later they would market the machine in the US as the PC6400. In June 1987, an improved model was produced as the PC1640. These machines had fast 8086 CPUs, enhanced CGA graphics, and were feature-laden for their modest prices. They had joystick adapters built into their keyboards and shipped with a licensed version of the Digital Research 's GEM , a GUI for the MS-DOS operating system. They became marginal successes in
8316-509: The US dropped from 442 million in 1990 to 274,000 by 2007. For audiobooks , the final year that cassettes represented more than 50% of total market sales was 2002 when they were replaced by CDs as the dominant media. The last new car with an available cassette player was a 2014 TagAZ AQUiLA. Four years prior, Sony had stopped the production of personal cassette players. In 2011, the Oxford English Dictionary removed
8448-422: The US in November 1964 as Norelco Carry-Corder 150 . By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone and Japan soon became the major source of recorders. By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players. By the end of the 1960s, the cassette business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. By the early 1970s the compact cassette machines were outselling other types of tape machines by
8580-654: The USA (this was not true of the laptop and pocket computers, nor peripherals). In 1985, the Epson corporation, a popular and respected producer of inexpensive dot-matrix printers and business computers (the QX-10 and QX-16 ), introduced its low-cost Epson Equity PC. Its designers took minor shortcuts, such as few expansion slots and a lack of a socket for an 8087 math chip, but Epson did bundle some utility programs that offered decent turnkey functionality for novice users. While not
8712-483: The Walkman was the first truly personal portable music player, one that not only allowed users to listen to music away from home, but to do so in private. According to the technology news website The Verge, "the world changed" on the day the TPS-L2 was released. Stereo tape decks and boom boxes became some of the most highly sought-after consumer products of both decades, as the ability of users to take their music with them anywhere with ease led to its popularity around
8844-431: The ability to run industry-standard MS-DOS software on affordable, user-friendly PCs was anticipated as a source of new sales. Furthermore, many in the industry felt that MS-DOS would eventually (inevitably, it seemed) come to dominate the computer business entirely, and some manufacturers felt the need to offer individual customers PC-style products suitable for the home market. In early 1984, market colossus IBM produced
8976-481: The author to obtain the programs on disk or cassette for a few dollars. Before the Internet, and before most computer owners had a modem , books were a popular and low-cost means of software distribution—one that had the advantage of incorporating its own documentation. These books also served a role in familiarizing new computer owners with the concepts of programming; some titles added suggested modifications to
9108-477: The base Amiga 1000 ) up to 1024 kB ( 1 MB , a milestone, first seen on the Atari 1040ST). These systems used 3.5" floppy disks from the beginning, but 5.25" drives were made available to facilitate data exchange with IBM PC compatibles. The Amiga and ST both had GUIs with windowing technology. These were inspired by the Macintosh , but at a list price of US$ 2,495 (equivalent to $ 7,100 in 2023),
9240-471: The cassette shell indicate the type of tape. Type I cassettes have only write-protect notches, Type II have an additional pair next to the write protection ones, and Type IV (metal) have a third set near the middle of the top of the cassette shell. These allow later cassette decks to detect the tape type automatically and select the proper bias and equalization. The cassette was the next step following reel-to-reel audio tape recording , although, because of
9372-444: The cassette tape was the most popular format in the United States and the UK. Record labels experimented with innovative packaging designs. A designer during the era explained: "There was so much money in the industry at the time, we could try anything with design." The introduction of the cassette single , called a "cassingle", was also part of this era and featured a music single in Compact Cassette form. Until 2005, cassettes remained
9504-477: The default PC floppy was double-sided, with about twice the storage capacity of floppy disks used by 8-bit home computers. PC drives tended to cost less because they were most often built-in, requiring no external case, controller, or power supply. The faster clock rates and wider buses available to later Intel CPUs compensated somewhat for the custom graphics and sound chips of the Commodores and Ataris. In time,
9636-484: The dominant medium for purchasing and listening to music in some developing countries , but compact disc (CD) technology had superseded the Compact Cassette in the vast majority of music markets throughout the world by this time. Compact cassettes served as catalysts for social change. Their small size, durability and ease of copying helped bring underground rock and punk music behind the Iron Curtain , creating
9768-642: The early '70s. By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million mono and stereo players. By the end of the 1960s, the cassette business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. By the early 1970s the compact cassette machines were outselling other types of tape machines by a large margin. The mass production of "blank" (not yet recorded) Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover , Germany. Prerecorded music cassettes (also known as Music-Cassettes , and later just Musicassettes ; M.C. for short) were launched in Europe in late 1965. The Mercury Record Company ,
9900-502: The early 1960s Philips Eindhoven tasked two different teams to design a tape cartridge for thinner and narrower tape compared to what was used in reel-to-reel tape recorders. By 1962, the Vienna division of Philips developed a single-hole cassette , adapted from its German described name Einloch-Kassette . Philips selected the two-spool cartridge as a winner and introduced the 2-track 2-direction mono version in Europe on 28 August 1963 at
10032-443: The early 1980s some record labels sought to solve this problem by introducing new, larger packages for cassettes which would allow them to be displayed alongside vinyl records and compact discs , or giving them a further market advantage over vinyl by adding bonus tracks . Willem Andriessen wrote that the development in technology allowed "hardware designers to discover and satisfy one of the collective desires of human beings all over
10164-478: The early 1980s. Some home computers were more successful. The BBC Micro , Sinclair ZX Spectrum , Atari 8-bit computers , and Commodore 64 sold many units over several years and attracted third-party software development. Almost universally, home computers had a BASIC interpreter combined with a line editor in permanent read-only memory , which one could use to type in BASIC programs and execute them immediately, or save them to tape or disk. In direct mode ,
10296-442: The end of cassette Walkman production on 22 October 2010, a result of the emergence of MP3 players such as Apple's iPod. As of 2022, Sony uses the Walkman brand solely for its line of digital media players. In 2010, Botswana-based Diamond Studios announced plans for establishing a plant to mass-produce cassettes in a bid to combat piracy. It opened in 2011. In South Korea, the early English education boom for toddlers encourages
10428-493: The end of the 8-bit era. Though external 3.5" drives were made available for home computer systems toward the latter part of the 1980s, almost all software sold for 8-bit home computers remained on 5.25" disks. 3.5" drives were used for data storage, with the exception of the Japanese MSX standard, on which 5.25" floppies were never popular. Standardization of disk formats was not common; sometimes, even different models from
10560-416: The family TV set, which served as both video display and sound system. The rise of the home computer also led to a fundamental shift during the early 1980s in where and how computers were purchased. Traditionally, microcomputers were obtained by mail order or were purchased in person at general electronics retailers like RadioShack . Silicon Valley , in the vanguard of the personal computer revolution,
10692-465: The few business users. Various copy protection schemes were developed for floppy disks; most were broken in short order. Many users would only tolerate copy protection for games, as wear and tear on disks was a significant issue in an entirely floppy-based system. The ability to make a "working backup" disk of vital application software was seen as important. Copy programs that advertised their ability to copy or even remove common protection schemes were
10824-520: The following year, their best year since they opened in 1969. In 2016, cassette sales in the United States rose by 74% to 129,000. In 2018, following several years of shortage, National Audio Company began producing their own magnetic tape, becoming the world's first known manufacturer of an all-new tape stock. Mulann, a company which acquired Pyral/RMGI in 2015 and originates from BASF , also started production of its new cassette tape stock in 2018, basing on reel tape formula. In Japan and South Korea,
10956-477: The form of cumbersome "sidecar" systems, such as on the TI-99/4 , or required finicky and unwieldy ribbon cables to connect the expansion modules. Sometimes they were equipped with a cheap membrane or chiclet keyboard in the early days, although full-travel keyboards quickly became universal due to overwhelming consumer preference. Most systems could use an RF modulator to display 20–40 column text output on
11088-606: The game console showed a blank screen or continued playing the same repetitive game. Another capability home computers had that game consoles of the time lacked was the ability to access remote services over telephone lines by adding a serial port interface, a modem , and communication software . Though it could be costly, it permitted the computer user to access services like Compuserve , and private or corporate bulletin board systems and viewdata services to post or read messages, or to download or upload software. Some enthusiasts with computers equipped with large storage capacity and
11220-467: The general public in the 1970s due to the mass production of the microprocessor , starting in 1971. Early microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 had front-mounted switches and diagnostic lights (nicknamed " blinkenlights ") to control and indicate internal system status, and were often sold in kit form to hobbyists. These kits would contain an empty printed circuit board which the buyer would fill with
11352-459: The globe. Like the transistor radio in the 1950s and 1960s, the portable CD player in the 1990s, and the MP3 player in the 2000s, the Walkman defined the portable music market for the decade of the '80s, with cassette sales overtaking those of LPs . Total vinyl record sales remained higher well into the 1980s due to greater sales of singles, although cassette singles achieved popularity for
11484-414: The growing popularity of home PCs spurred many software publishers to offer gaming and children's software titles. Many decision-makers in the computer industry believed there could be a viable market for office workers who used PC/DOS computers at their jobs and would appreciate an ability to bring diskettes of data home on weeknights and weekends to continue work after-hours on their "home" computers. So,
11616-548: The home computer era is that the once-common endeavor of writing one's own software programs has almost vanished from home computer use. As early as 1965, some experimental projects, such as Jim Sutherland's ECHO IV , explored the possible utility of a computer in the home. In 1969, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was marketed as a luxury gift item, and would have inaugurated the era of home computing, but none were sold. Computers became affordable for
11748-443: The home computer user could program one—provided they had invested the requisite hours to learn computer programming , as well as the idiosyncrasies of their system. Since most systems arrived with the BASIC programming language included on the system ROM , it was easy for users to get started creating their own simple applications. Many users found programming to be a fun and rewarding experience, and an excellent introduction to
11880-451: The home market on price because Leading Edge had access to low-cost hardware from their Asian manufacturing partners Mitsubishi with the Model M and Daewoo with the Model D. The LEWP was bundled with the Model D. It was favorably reviewed by the computer press and sold very well. By the mid '80s, the market for inexpensive PCs for use in the home market was expanding at such a rate that
12012-483: The home market. In 1987, longtime small computer maker Zenith introduced a low-cost PC they called the EaZy PC . This was positioned as an "appliance" computer much like the original Apple Macintosh: turnkey startup, built-in monochrome video monitor, and lacking expansion slots, requiring proprietary add-ons available only from Zenith, but instead with the traditional MS-DOS Command-line interface . The EaZy PC used
12144-489: The home". In 1990, the company reportedly refused to support joysticks on its low-cost Macintosh LC and IIsi computers to prevent customers from considering them as "game machines". Although the Apple II and Atari computers are functionally similar, Atari's home-oriented marketing resulted in a game-heavy library with much less business software. By the late 1980s, many mass merchants sold video game consoles like
12276-462: The image of, as Compute! wrote, "a low-powered, low-end machine primarily suited for playing games". Apple consistently avoided stating that it was a home-computer company, and described the IIc as "a serious computer for the serious home user", despite competing against IBM's PCjr home computer. John Sculley denied that his company sold home computers; rather, he said, Apple sold "computers for use in
12408-609: The industrial metal card-cage enclosures used by the Altair and similar computers. The keyboard - a feature lacking on the Altair - was usually built into the same case as the motherboard . Ports for plug-in peripheral devices such as a video display, cassette tape recorders, joysticks , and (later) disk drives were either built-in or available on expansion cards . Although the Apple II had internal expansion slots, most other home computer models' expansion arrangements were through externally-accessible 'expansion ports' that also served as
12540-404: The inventor of a chromium dioxide (CrO 2 ) manufacturing process, began commercialization of CrO 2 media. The first CrO 2 cassette was introduced in 1970 by Advent , and later strongly backed by BASF , the inventor and longtime manufacturer of magnetic recording tape. Next, coatings using magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) such as TDK 's Audua were produced in an attempt to approach or exceed
12672-1124: The labels facing the user and the tape opening at the bottom, the write-protect notch for the corresponding side is at the top-left. Tape length usually is measured in minutes of total playing time. Many of the varieties of blank tape were C60 (30 minutes per side), C90 (45 minutes per side) and C120 (60 minutes per side). Maxell makes 150-minute cassettes (UR-150) - 75 minutes per side. The C46 and C60 lengths typically are 15 to 16 micrometers (0.59 to 0.63 mils) thick, but C90s are 10 to 11 μm (0.39 to 0.43 mils) and (the less common) C120s are just 6 μm (0.24 mils) thick, rendering them more susceptible to stretching or breakage. Even C180 tapes were available at one point. Other lengths are (or were) also available from some vendors, including C10, C12 and C15 (useful for saving data from early home computers and in telephone answering machines ), C30, C40, C50, C54, C64, C70, C74, C80, C84, C94, C100, C105, C110, and C150. As late as 2010, Thomann still offered C10, C20, C30 and C40 IEC Type II tape cassettes for use with 4- and 8-track portastudios . The full tape width
12804-406: The late 1970s, the 6502-based Apple II had carved out a niche for itself in business, thanks to the industry's first killer app , VisiCalc , released in 1979. However, the Apple II would quickly be displaced for office use by IBM PC compatibles running Lotus 1-2-3 . Apple Computer 's 1980 Apple III was underwhelming, and although the 1984 release of the Macintosh introduced the modern GUI to
12936-438: The limitations of the cassette's size and speed, it initially compared poorly in quality. Unlike the 4-track stereo open-reel format, the two stereo tracks of each side lie adjacent to each other, rather than being interleaved with the tracks of the other side. This permitted monaural cassette players to play stereo recordings "summed" as mono tracks and permitted stereo players to play mono recordings through both speakers. The tape
13068-402: The lines of 64 Amazing BASIC Games for the Commodore 64 . While most of the programs in these books were short and simple games or demos , some titles, such as Compute! ' s SpeedScript series, contained productivity software that rivaled commercial packages. To avoid the tedious process of typing in a program listing from a book, these books would sometimes include a mail-in offer from
13200-453: The market that use a pure (CrO 2 ) coating. Simple voice recorders and earlier cassette decks are designed to work with standard ferric formulations. Newer tape decks usually are built with switches and later detectors for the different bias and equalization requirements for higher grade tapes. The most common are iron oxide tapes (as defined by the IEC 60094 standard ). Notches on top of
13332-512: The market, it was not common until IBM-compatible computers adopted it. Throughout the 1980s, businesses large and small adopted the PC platform, leading, by the end of the decade, to sub-US$ 1000 IBM PC XT -class white box machines, usually built in Asia and sold by US companies like PCs Limited . In 1980, Wayne Green , the publisher of Kilobaud Microcomputing , recommended that companies avoid
13464-664: The new machine and its MS-DOS operating system. Even basic PCs cost thousands of dollars and were far out of reach for typical home computer users. However, in the following years, technological advances and improved manufacturing capabilities (mainly greater use of robotics and relocation of production plants to lower-wage locations in Asia) permitted several computer companies to offer lower-cost, PC-style machines that would become competitive with many 8-bit home-market pioneers like Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, and Sinclair. PCs could never become as affordable as these because
13596-530: The overthrow of the regime of the Shah , Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . During the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) a "cassette culture" emerged where blacklisted music or music that was by other reasons not available as records was shared. Some pirate cassette producers created brands such as Cumbre y Cuatro that have in retrospect received praise for their contributions to popular music. Armed groups such as Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) and
13728-563: The phrase "cassette player" from its 12th edition Concise version, which prompted some media sources to mistakenly report that the term "cassette tape" was being removed. In India, music continued to be released on the cassette format due to its low cost until 2009. Although portable digital recorders are most common today, analog tape remains a desirable option for certain artists and consumers. Underground and DIY communities release regularly, and sometimes exclusively, on cassette format, particularly in experimental music circles and to
13860-593: The pop acts Seiko Matsuda , SHINee , and NCT 127 released their material on limited-run cassettes. In Reiwa era Japan, the revived popularity of cassette tapes is an example of Showa retro . In the mid-to-late 2010s, cassette sales saw a modest resurgence concurrent with the vinyl revival . As early as 2015, the retail chain Urban Outfitters , which had long sold LPs , started selling new pre-recorded cassettes (both new and old albums), blank cassettes, and players. In 2016, cassette sales increased,
13992-546: The price difference between old 8-bit technology and new PCs. Despite their higher absolute prices, PCs were perceived by many to be better values for their utility as superior productivity tools and their access to industry-standard software. Another advantage was the 8088/8086's wide, 20-bit address bus. The PC could access more than 64 kilobytes of memory relatively inexpensively (8-bit CPUs, which generally had multiplexed 16-bit address buses, required complicated, tricky memory management techniques like bank-switching ). Similarly,
14124-474: The program listings for the user to carry out. Applying a patch to modify software to be compatible with one's system, or writing a utility program to fit one's needs, was a skill every advanced computer owner was expected to have. During the peak years of the home computer market, scores of models were produced, usually as individual design projects with little or no thought given to compatibility between different manufacturers, or even within product lines of
14256-501: The recording back through the modem to "load". Most cassette implementations were notoriously slow and unreliable, but 8" drives were too bulky for home use, and early 5.25" form-factor drives were priced for business use, out of reach of most home buyers. An innovative alternative was the Exatron Stringy Floppy , a continuous-loop tape drive which was much faster than a data cassette drive and could perform much like
14388-518: The same manufacturer used different disk formats. Almost universally, the floppy disk drives available for 8-bit home computers were housed in external cases, with their own controller boards and power supplies contained within. Only the later, advanced 8-bit home computers housed their drives within the main unit; these included the TRS-80 Model III , TRS-80 Model 4 , Apple IIc , MSX2 , and Commodore 128D . The later 16-bit machines, such as
14520-445: The same manufacturer. Except for the Japanese MSX standard, the concept of a computer platform was still forming, with most companies considering rudimentary BASIC language and disk format compatibility sufficient to claim a model as "compatible". Things were different in the business world, where cost-conscious small business owners had been using CP/M running on Z80 -based computers from Osborne , Kaypro , Morrow Designs , and
14652-473: The same market as the consoles. A home computer was often seen as simply a higher-end purchase than a console, adding abilities and productivity potential to what would still be mainly a gaming device. A common marketing tactic was to show a computer system and console playing games side by side, then emphasizing the computer's greater ability by showing it running user-created programs, education software, word processing, spreadsheet, and other applications, while
14784-418: The same price-reducing measures were available to all computer makers. Furthermore, software and peripherals for PC-style computers tended to cost more than those for 8-bit computers because of the anchoring effect caused by the pricey IBM PC. As well, PCs were inherently more expensive since they could not use the home TV set as a video display. Nonetheless, the overall reduction in manufacturing costs narrowed
14916-444: The side-effect that European and North American versions of the same home computer operated at slightly different speeds and different video resolution due to different television standards. Initially, many home computers used the then-ubiquitous compact audio cassette as a storage mechanism. A rough analogy to how this worked would be to place a recorder on the phone line as a file was uploaded by modem to "save" it, and playing
15048-482: The sound quality of vinyl records . Cobalt - adsorbed iron oxide (Avilyn) was introduced by TDK in 1974 and proved very successful. "Type IV" tapes using pure metal particles (as opposed to oxide formulations) were introduced in 1979 by 3M under the trade name Metafine. The tape coating on most cassettes sold as of 2024 are either "normal" or "chrome" consists of ferric oxide and cobalt mixed in varying ratios (and using various processes); there are very few cassettes on
15180-536: The tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played or recorded when the tape is moving in one direction and the second (pair) when moving in the other direction. This reversal is achieved either by manually flipping the cassette when the tape comes to an end, or by the reversal of tape movement, known as "auto-reverse", when the mechanism detects that the tape has ended. After the Second World War , magnetic tape recording technology proliferated across
15312-406: The term "home computer" in their advertising, as it "I feel is self-limiting for sales...I prefer the term "microcomputers" since it doesn't limit the uses of the equipment in the imagination of the prospective customers". With the exception of Tandy, most computer companies – even those with a majority of sales to home users – agreed, avoiding the term "home computer" because of its association with
15444-599: The time 1801 series CPU , offering a full PDP-11 compatibility and a fully functional Q-Bus slot, though at the cost of very anemic RAM and graphics. The Motorola 6809 was used by the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer , the Fujitsu FM-7 , and Dragon 32/64 . Processor clock rates were typically 1–2 MHz for 6502 and 6809-based CPUs and 2–4 MHz for Z80-based systems (yielding roughly equal performance), but this aspect
15576-501: The transition from 5.25" to 3.5" format at the time (though 5.25" drives remained common on PCs until the late 1990s, due to existence of the large software and data archives on five-inch floppies). 5.25" drives were made available for the ST, Amiga, and Macintosh, otherwise 3.5" based systems with no other use for a 5.25" format. Hard drives were never popular on home computers, remaining an expensive, niche product mainly for BBS sysops and
15708-836: The two leaders in the US, Commodore and Atari, themselves felt compelled to enter the market with their own lines. They were only marginally successful compared to other companies that made only PCs. Still, later prices of white box PC clone computers by various manufacturers became competitive with the higher-end home computers (see below). Throughout the 1980s, costs and prices continued to be driven down by: advanced circuit design and manufacturing, multi-function expansion cards, shareware applications such as PC-Talk , PC-Write , and PC-File , greater hardware reliability, and more user-friendly software that demanded less customer support services. The increasing availability of faster processor and memory chips, inexpensive EGA and VGA video cards, sound cards , and joystick adapters also bolstered
15840-509: The viability of PC/DOS computers as alternatives to specially-made computers and game consoles for the home. From about 1985, the high end of the home computer market began to be dominated by "next-generation" home computers using the 16-bit Motorola 68000 chip, which enabled the greatly-increased abilities of the Amiga and Atari ST series (in the UK, the Sinclair QL was built around
15972-421: The world of digital technology. The line between 'business' and 'home' computer market segments vanished completely once IBM PC compatibles became commonly used in the home, since now both categories of computers typically use the same processor architectures, peripherals, operating systems, and applications. Often, the only difference may be the sales outlet through which they are purchased. Another change from
16104-559: The world, independent of region, climate, religion, culture, race, sex, age and education: the desire to enjoy music at any time, at any place, in any desired sound quality and almost at any wanted price". Critic Robert Palmer , writing in The New York Times in 1981, cited the proliferation of personal stereos as well as extra tracks not available on LP as reasons for the surge in popularity of cassettes. Cassettes' ability to allow users to record content in public also led to
16236-548: The world. Due to the "price wars" being waged in the USA home computer market during the 1983-85 period, MSX computers were never marketed to any great extent in the USA. Eventually more advanced mainstream home computers and game consoles obsoleted the MSX machines. The MSX computers were built around the Zilog Z80 8-bit processor, assisted with dedicated video graphics and audio coprocessors supplied by Intel , Texas Instruments , and General Instrument . MSX computers received
16368-513: The world. In the United States, Ampex , using equipment obtained in Germany as a starting point, began commercial production of tape recorders . First used in studios to record radio programs, tape recorders quickly found their way into schools and homes. By 1953, 1 million US homes had tape machines. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge . In
16500-573: Was also used for expansion or upgrades such as fast loaders . Application software on cartridge did exist, which loaded instantly and eliminated the need for disk swapping on single-drive setups, but the vast majority of cartridges were games. From the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer (ubiquitously known as the PC) in 1981, the market for computers meant for the corporate, business, and government sectors came to be dominated by
16632-413: Was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape and kept improving. The Compact Cassette went on to become a popular (and re-recordable ) alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. As with prerecorded reel-to-reel and 8-track, sales were slow to start, but picked up rapidly to tie with the 8-track before superseding it by
16764-501: Was not considered a serious drawback in mobile use. With the introduction of electronic skip protection it became possible to use portable CD players on the go, and automotive CD players became viable. CD-R drives and media also became affordable for consumers around the same time. By 1993, annual shipments of CD players had reached 5 million, up 21% from the year before; while cassette player shipments had dropped 7% to approximately 3.4 million. Sales of pre-recorded music cassettes in
16896-424: Was not emphasized by users or manufacturers, as the systems' limited RAM capacity, graphics abilities, and storage options had a more perceivable effect on performance than CPU speed. For low-price computers, the cost of RAM memory chips contributed greatly to the final product price to the consumer, and fast CPUs demanded expensive, fast memory. As a result, designers kept clock rates only adequate. In some cases, like
17028-417: Was that while those TV-monitors had difficulty displaying the clear and readable 80-column text that became the industry standard at the time, the only consumers who really needed that were the power users utilizing the machine for business purposes, while the average casual consumer would use the system for games only and was content with the lower resolution, for which a TV worked fine. An important exception
17160-474: Was the Radio Shack TRS-80 , the first mass-marketed computer for home use, which included its own 64-column display monitor and full-travel keyboard as standard features. This " peripherals sold separately" approach is another defining characteristic of the home computer era. A first-time computer buyer who brought a base C-64 system home and hooked it up to their TV would find they needed to buy
17292-501: Was the TI-99/4 , announced in 1979 with a 16-bit TMS9900 CPU. The TI was originally to use the 8-bit 9985 processor designed especially for it, but this project was cancelled. However, the glue logic needed to retrofit the 16-bit CPU to an 8-bit 9985 system negated the advantages of the more powerful CPU. Another exception was the Soviet Elektronika BK series of 1984, which used the fully-16-bit and powerful for
17424-424: Was the first place to see the appearance of new retail stores dedicated to selling only computer hardware, computer software, or both, and also the first place where such stores began to specialize in particular platforms. By 1982, an estimated 621,000 home computers were in American households, at an average sales price of US$ 530 (equivalent to $ 1,673 in 2023). After the success of the Radio Shack TRS-80 ,
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