What were the best 8 bit computers of the late 70s and through the 1980s - ?

Of course, the Commodore 64 is still considered the #1 selling computer of all time, and thus had the most software available for it, but that's where it stops for me.

Born in the very early 70's, the first real computer I was exposed to was the Apple ][. One Apple 2 sat in the elementary school cafeteria & 2 students at a time were allowed to leave class to use it. I was immediately hooked on computers. We plotted graphics on very large block graph paper and then got to plot the drawings/images on the screen of the Apple. Saving the programs/images to 5 1/4" floppy disks - to finish later if we hadn't finished. I specifically remember “Elephant” brand floppy disks (as they never forgot – supposedly, lol). We didn't have a printer. I don't recall any purchased software for the Apple. I just remember plotting graphics on the computer.

I was hooked on computers and my mother bought me a Timex Sinclair 1000 at the local Montgomery Ward. What a major disappointment the Sinclair was. It was returned the next day - traded in for a Commodore Vic 20 to be exact (with a tape drive to save and load programs with). It was closer to a computer that the Apple ][ was, but not quite.

The Apple 2 was financially out of reach for my family. So the first computer that compared to the Apple 2 was the Atari 800xl, which I owned next, along with an Atari 1050 disk drive. It was a great computer, in my opinion, and it actually surpassed and was technically superior to the Apple - both in graphics resolution and in sound. Naturally so, as it was older than the Atari. The disk drive operating system was also superior to the Apples. I recently read that Wozniak actually designed the Apple ][ disk drive to be “stupid” to save money. Things like the clicking noise the Apple drive made when it started off, was it’s way of finding the started sectors (or something like that). The Atari and Commodore disk drives actually were computers in themselves compared to the Apple – which also reflected in the price of their drives costing more than the computers themselves.

After many years of software piracy, mostly games, I decided to get a Commodore 64. For no other reason than it had many more programs (games) available for it – to pirate of course. Game piracy was a large part of the culture of owning 8 bit computers back then (especially for us kids). And while the # of games were far in excess of those available for the Atari, I quickly came to the opinion that the C64 was inferior - especially when it came to the disk operating system. Not only was the c64's disk system slower, but it was *far* more buggy. For the Atari 800 8 bit systems, for a computer that came out a few years before the Commodore 64, the Atari also held it’s own when it came to graphics and sound. One aspect lacking of piracy back then, was typing in programs found in magazines (such as Compute! - still available free online for those interested). Such publications contained programs available, to be typed in, for the major 8 bit computers of the time. Most the programs never worked (for me & likey due to my mis-typing a character or few along the way) - resulting in one disappointment after another, but monthly I kept typing them in (and on occasion I'd get lucky and one would actually work).

Without turning this into a book, it’s easy to see that my list of best 8 bit computers would be:
#1 – Atari
#2 – Apple
#3 – C64
then two I haven’t mentioned but are runners up:
Texas Instruments TI 99/4A & Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computers

I am very interested in users here opinions on the best 8 bit computers of the late 70s and through the 80s. Especially those of you that lived through the era as I did...

I would collect at least 10 or 20 computers (from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...onal_computers) and probably create a vote. But ABC80 is missing from that wiki page and some others too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_80).
The best is obviously the one I used a lot (C64, ZX Spectrum and HT 1080Z)

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for replying & I've never heard of the ABC80, ZX Spectru, or HT 1080Z. I'll definitely go look them up now and read about them. Smiles!

No 8bits for me, I couldn't afford a computer, until several years after a computer training course in 1974, (I think it was 1978, & I would have been 38 years old at the time).

It was a twin (3.5") floppy, 10GHz 8088, with 512MB ram, & a 9" monochrome CRT monitor - & that cost me £500!!!

I even had to buy a copy of DOS to make it work, about £45, I think - computers weren't cheap back then!

I remember bringing a Sinclair ZX81 home from work one day to show my mother. For those who have never seen one, it looked like a square, rather flat biscuit tin with a keyboard painted on the front. No screen; you plugged it into your TV. It ran Basic and I showed her how you could use it to do calculations like converting centigrade into fahrenheit. She was not impressed.

"I don't see what's so marvellous about that," she said with a sniff. "It only does what you tell it to."

I told her with a smile that she already knew more about computers than two thirds of the country did.

In 1978 ?.

Lucky you - I had to make do with 48 (64 ?) kB on my TRS80 in the early 80's.

I never owned one but the best IMHO was the Altair 8800.

I got the Sinclair Spectrum when it came out and practiced Basic on it — I'd already learnt it on the IBM at work.

Years later I started to collect vintage computers but sanity set in and I realised a small flat was not a suitable place for a computer collection.

The Dragon was quite nice. The Dragon 32 was a bit like a TRS Coco, while the Dragon 64 with a floppy disk drive could run OS9, an operating system that's still used.

Another good one was the Texas Instruments TI99/4A. The Basic there was incredible — I remember some-one was able to write a simple Space Invader program in just one line. The expansion box which housed I/O ports and floppy drives had its own power supply. That, together with the steel case and steel cases for all the plugins, gave it a weight of about 40 lb!

Certainly it was 512 kB not MB.
Still impressive, for that time.

Beyond all question, the Interact Model J 16K. Designed by Mainframe Engineers for Engineers it had a true digital tape device, no audio mod/demod involved, video was direct memory mapped in a SANE way, and the A/D for the game controller was a Fairchild chip that was about the best thing for the job: period. Speaking of game controllers, it had two, and they were like nothing else I have ever seen: joystick, buttons, and rheostat/knob and games could use any of them, or ALL of them. I had three interpreters for it and a macro assembler. It had the same CPU as my good MPM-II and CP/M computers, the Z-80. I still miss that box!

Not the best spec of system, but one I consider a standout for the 80's was the 1986 Amstrad PC1512 / PC1640 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512 which came in at a price point that made "PC Compatible" systems accessible.

I also consider the Apricot PC, F1/F10 and later "Xen" as very good machines. I loved the fact that the Apricot machines had a number of programable function key "pads" that had an LCD screen above them, so you could programatically change the labels and key functions in a context aware way. Something 35 years later I wish existed with "modern" PCs.

I think that the Apple II was far and away the best 8 bit computer. It used the Mos Technology 6502 processor which was superior to anything in the Intel line. Wozniak's overall architecture design was superior to any other architecture of that period. The operating system was so-so and new releases were sometimes semi incompatible with the previous release.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II

https://history-computer.com/apple-ii-guide/

I seriously doubt the "512MB" spec in this thread. It simply wasn't possible with the chips available at the time. The IBM PC standard ram was 512KB, not MB. And the amount of board space required was big enough. In the 90s, huge changes happened, but not the 80s.

Surely that would have been 10MHz and 512KB RAM!

My first "home computers" included a home brew based on a Motorola 6800, 8-digit 7-segment LED display, hexadecimal keypad plus toggle switches and a homemade cassette interface that more or less worked on most days. I am not sure any more, but I think it had 8Kb RAM and 4KB ROM - and could be made to perform amazing feats!

But far and away the most useful machine was an Apple ][ - which I still have (not powered on in more than 20 years, but still complete in the box).

The thing that made the Apple ][ so useful for me was the bus accessibility, complete annotated ROM listing and low cost 6502 assembler availability with reliable floppy interface - coupled with widespread early adoption by people wanted to use it for custom controllers. I built numerous interfaces/drivers for things like paper-tape reader/punch, machine control and measurement (manufacturing and scientific applications), even a private network in which the nodes would contact each other and sync data via phone modem overnight, queueing and exchanging messages we would now call email but without a high cost dedicated network connection. It was at the time, and for a few years, a powerful but low cost platform with no effective proprietary lock-down impediments - very versatile!

From there I moved to CP/M on an S-100 bus by about 1980 as the preferred development platform... and via a company I worked for at the time to the mighty new 68000 family of CPUs. Lots of Z-80 based hardware and of course 8080/8088 machines, but limited exposure to systems with names we still remember like Atari and C64.

Fun Free times before we even realized the importance of Software and Hardware Freedom and simply took it for granted!

(Slightly OT - did anyone else work with the "bit-slice" family of devices, not exactly sure of the actual trade names. I worked with some of the National Semiconductor chips and as I recall Fairchild had a similar line).

IBM XT