On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, Gil Parrish wrote:
> I still remember the IBM PC jr., that "home" version of the IBM PC that
> didn't manage to be "IBM compatible." If that's what Microsoft has in mind,
> I think MOST consumers would like to stick to Win 95/98/ME. At least
> there's only 1 version, and it runs all the 95/98/ME software we already
> have.
The IBM PC jr was the first computer I had at home. A friend passed it on
to me when he upgraded. Brand new it cost him over two thousand dollars
and came with only 128k of RAM. Additional memory was expensive and came
in what they called "Side cars" that were screwed onto the side of the
case. To get up to 640K cost over five hundred dollars. But if you had
the full complement of memory, the PC jr was fully compatible with
the IBM PC. BASIC was more importnat than DOS in those days. With
the PC jr, BASIC came on a cartridge that plugged into the front. With
the full blown PC, BASIC came preinstalled on a chip on the motherboard.
And in some ways the PC jr was more advanced than the PC. A color CGA
display was standard ( as opposed to B+W) and Junior had a wireless
keyboard! Plus you could get various other input devices like a light
pen and even a scanner.
Hardware (especially memory) was just very expensive in those early
days. As memory became cheaper the rational for the Junior became
less and less important.
But it was some time before color monitors became standard on business
computers. Color was thought of as an uncessary luxury.
Sam Ewalt
On occasion I still use a program called "Superwriter" that came in
a shoebox of floppies with Junior. Great little program.
It came out in 1982!
