The TRS-80 Micro Computer System is a desktop microcomputer developed by American company Tandy Corporation and was sold through their Radio Shack stores. Launched in 1977, it is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers. The name is an abbreviation of Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 [microprocessor], referring to its Zilog Z80 8-bit microprocessor.
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer, is a series of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Computer is a completely different system and a radical departure in design based on the Motorola 6809E processor rather than the Zilog Z80 of earlier models.
The Tandy 1000 was the first in a series of IBM PC compatible home computers produced by the Tandy Corporation, sold through its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center stores. Introduced in 1984, the Tandy 1000 line was designed to offer affordable yet capable systems for home computing and education. Tandy-specific features, such as enhanced graphics, sound, and a built-in joystick port, made the computers particularly attractive for home use.
"IBM PC–compatible" refers to a class of computers that are technically compatible with the 1981 IBM PC and subsequent XT and AT models from computer giant IBM. Like the original IBM PC, they use an Intel x86 central processing unit and are capable of using interchangeable commodity hardware, such as expansion cards. Initially such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones, but the term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, as the vast majority of microcomputers produced since the 1990s are IBM compatible. IBM itself no longer sells personal computers, having sold its division to Lenovo in 2005. "Wintel" is a similar description that is more commonly used for modern computers.
The MCS-48 microcontroller series, Intel's first microcontroller, was originally released in 1976. Its first members were 8048, 8035 and 8748. The 8048 is arguably the most prominent member of the family. Initially, this family was produced using NMOS technology. In the early 1980s, it became available in CMOS technology. It was manufactured into the 1990s to support older designs that still used it.
The CDTV is a home multimedia entertainment and video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by the addition of optional peripherals – developed by Commodore International and launched in April 1991.
The Tandy 2000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in September 1983 based on the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor running MS-DOS. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor, and the IBM PC/AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286. Due to the 16-bit data bus and more efficient instruction decoding of the 80186, the Tandy 2000 ran significantly faster than other PC compatibles, and slightly faster than the PC AT. The Tandy 2000 was the company's first computer built around an Intel x86 series microprocessor; previous models used the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 6809 CPUs.
The Mindset is an Intel 80186-based MS-DOS personal computer. It was developed by the Mindset Corporation and released in spring 1984. Unlike other IBM PC compatibles of the time, it has custom graphics hardware supporting a 320×200 resolution with 16 simultaneous colors and hardware-accelerated drawing capabilities, including a blitter, allowing it to update the screen 50 times as fast as an IBM standard color graphics adapter. The basic unit was priced at US$1,798. It is conceptually similar to the more successful Amiga released over a year later. Key engineers of both the Amiga and Mindset were ex-Atari, Inc. employees.
The FM Towns Marty is a home video game console released in 1993 by Fujitsu, exclusively for the Japanese market. It uses the AMD 386SX, a CPU that is internally 32-bit but with a 16-bit data bus. The console comes with a built-in CD-ROM drive and disk drive. It was based on the earlier FM Towns computer system Fujitsu had released in 1989. The Marty was backward-compatible with older FM Towns games.
The TRS-80 Model 100 is a notebook-sized portable computer introduced in April 1983.
The Soundscape Elite was Ensoniq's high-end ISA PC sound card offering. It offers the highest MIDI quality of any PC sound card Ensoniq produced. The board is an evolution of the company's previous Soundscape S-2000. The Soundscape ELITE was launched in March 1995.
The 3DO Blaster is an add-on produced by Creative Labs from 1994 designed to allow compatible Windows-based PCs to play 3DO format games. It is a full-sized ISA compatibility card with the 3DO logic board included, with the input (controllers) and output redirected to the PC. Its name was derived from the company's other Blaster products for PC such as the Sound Blaster. The 3DO Blaster provided a simple plug and play alternative using the established 3DO standard, instead of building a custom graphics unit that may run into incompatibilities. Having partnered with The 3DO Company, Creative attempted to make the 3DO Blaster "the standard for PC games".
The Vortex86 is a computing system-on-a-chip (SoC) based on a core compatible with the x86 microprocessor family. It is produced by DM&P Electronics, but originated with Rise Technology.
The TRS-80 Model II is a computer system launched by Tandy in October 1979, and targeted at the small-business market. It is not an upgrade of the original TRS-80 Model I, but a new system.
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series run as a shell on top of MS-DOS; it was the last Windows 16-bit operating environment as all future versions of Windows had moved to 32-bit.
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.
Tandy Graphics Adapter is a computer display standard for the Tandy 1000 series of IBM PC compatibles, which has compatibility with the video subsystem of the IBM PCjr but became a standard in its own right.
The Tandy 3000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in 1986 based on the 16-bit 8 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor.
