The Aster CT-80, an early (1982) home/personal computer developed by the small Dutch company MCP, was sold in its first incarnation as a kit for hobbyists. Later it was sold ready to use. It consisted of several Eurocard PCB's with DIN 41612 connectors, and a backplane all based on a 19-inch rack configuration. It was the first commercially available Dutch personal/home computer. The Aster computer could use the software written for the popular Tandy TRS-80 computer while fixing many of the problems of that computer, but it could also run CP/M software, with a large amount of free memory Transient Program Area, (TPA) and a full 80×25 display, and it could be used as a Videotext terminal. Although the Aster was a clone of the TRS-80 Model I it was in fact more compatible with the TRS-80 Model III, and ran all the software of these systems including games. It also had a built in speaker which was compatible with such games software.
The Sinclair QL is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum.
The Tandy 1000 is the first in a line of IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center chains of stores.
The Sprinter is a microcomputer made by the Russian firm Peters Plus, Ltd. It was the last ZX Spectrum clone produced in a factory.
The Pentagon home computer was a clone of the British-made Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128. It was manufactured by amateurs in the former Soviet Union, following freely distributable documentation. Its PCB was copied all over the ex-USSR in 1991-1996, which made it a widespread ZX Spectrum clone. The name "Pentagon" derives from the shape of the original PCB, with a diagonal cut in one of the corners.
The SAM Coupé is an 8-bit British home computer manufactured by Miles Gordon Technology (MGT), based in Swansea in the United Kingdom and released in December 1989.
MSX BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language. It is an extended version of Microsoft's MBASIC Version 4.5, adding support for graphic, music, and various peripherals attached to MSX microcomputers. Generally, MSX BASIC is designed to follow GW-BASIC, released the same year for IBM PCs and clones. During the creation of MSX BASIC, effort was made to make the system flexible and expandable.
The IBM Personal Computer AT was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 80286 microprocessor.
The Rainbow 100 is a microcomputer introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1982. This desktop unit had a monitor similar to the VT220 and a dual-CPU box with both 4 MHz Zilog Z80 and 4.81 MHz Intel 8088 CPUs. The Rainbow 100 was a triple-use machine: VT100 mode, 8-bit CP/M mode, and CP/M-86 or MS-DOS mode using the 8088. Although the Rainbow 100 was superior to the IBM PC both technologically and ergonomically, DEC prematurely dropped support of the Rainbow 100 in order to focus on its “bread and butter” minicomputer products instead. Had they maintained the support the machine deserved, they well may have turned Big Blue on its ear. The Rainbow was launched along with the similarly packaged DEC Professional and DECmate II which were also not successful. The failure of DEC to gain a significant foothold in the high-volume PC market would be the beginning of the end of the computer hardware industry in New England, as nearly all computer companies located there were focused on minicomputers for large organizations, from DEC to Data General, Wang, Prime, Computervision, Honeywell, and Symbolics Inc.
The Dubna 48K is a Soviet clone of the ZX Spectrum home computer launched in 1991. It was based on an analogue of the Zilog Z80 microprocessor. Its name comes from Dubna, a town near Moscow, where it was produced on the "TENSOR" instrument factory, and "48K" stands for 48 KBs of RAM.
The ATM Turbo, also known simply as ATM is a ZX Spectrum clone, developed in Moscow in 1991, by two firms, MicroArt and ATM.
The Leading Edge Model D is an IBM clone first released by Leading Edge Hardware in July 1985. It was initially priced at $1,495 configured with dual 5.25" floppy drives, 256 KB of RAM, and a monochrome monitor. It was manufactured by South Korean conglomerate Daewoo and distributed by Canton, Massachusetts-based Leading Edge. Engineer Stephen Kahng spent about four months designing the Model D at a cost of $200,000. Kahng later became CEO of Macintosh clone maker Power Computing.
The Tandy Memorex Video Information System (VIS) is an interactive, multimedia CD-ROM player produced by the Tandy Corporation starting in 1992. It is similar in function to the Philips CD-i and Commodore CDTV systems. The VIS systems were sold only at Radio Shack, under the Memorex brand, both of which Tandy owned at the time.
iS-DOS is a disk operating system (DOS) for Soviet/Russian ZX Spectrum clones. iS-DOS was developed in 1990 or 1991, by Iskra Soft, in Leningrad, Soviet Union, now Saint Petersburg, Russia.
TR-DOS is a disk operating system for the ZX Spectrum with Beta Disc and Beta 128 disc interfaces. TR-DOS and Beta disc were developed by Technology Research Ltd (UK), in 1984. A clone of this interface is also used in the Russian Pentagon and Scorpion machines.
Vector-06C is a home computer with unique graphics capabilities that was designed and mass-produced in USSR in the late 1980s.
The Kay 1024 was a Russian ZX Spectrum clone introduced in 1998. Created by the NEMO company of St. Petersburg, it has 1024 KB of RAM. It was a rival to Scorpion ZS 256, having a slightly lower price. It offered a controller for a PC keyboard and HDD, but not for floppy disks. Adding a General Sound card was easy, and the CPU had a 7 Mhz turbo mode.
The Thomson TO16 or Thomson TO16PC is a PC compatible personal computer introduced by French company Thomson SA in 1987, with prices ranging from 9000 to 16000 FF depending on the version.
