Post by Golan Klinger on Aug 12, 2006 16:03:19 GMT -5
PC World is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the IBM PC by compiling a list of The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time. The list is quite interesting although critically flawed. My beef? Nary a mention of the Commodore 64. How can one make a list of the greatest personal computers of all time and not include the #1 selling machine of all time? The 64 is a powerful and inexpensive computer that launched thousands, if not millions, of people on their life-long computing journey and is still in active use today (have you looked at the other PETSCII message boards lately?). Bah!
Glaring oversights aside, the list includes some seminal computers like #14 (Atari 800), #12 (MITS Altair 8800), #8 (TRS-80 model 100) and #7 (Amiga A1000). What amazed me was how many of the computers on the list I've owned over the years. I had an HP 100LX (#22, followed by an HP200LX), a Toshiba T1000 (#17, followed by a T1000XE), the aforementioned Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (#8) and Commodore Amiga A1000 (#7, followed by an Amiga 3000). I've also owned a lot of variations on computers from the list too such as two different Thinkpads, a Powerbook, an iMac, an Atari 800XL, an IBM-made PC (it was actually a PS/2) and a couple of Compaqs. Heck, my sister use to have a Kaypro II (#25, oh how I wish that hadn't ended up on the scrapheap).
Anyway, lists like this tend to stir up emotions so I think a lively debate is in order. What wasn't on the list but should have been? What was on the list and shouldn't have been? It would also be fun to hear which of those computers you've owned, which you wished you had owned and last but not least, if you had to pick one computer and computer ONLY from that list to use for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Glaring oversights aside, the list includes some seminal computers like #14 (Atari 800), #12 (MITS Altair 8800), #8 (TRS-80 model 100) and #7 (Amiga A1000). What amazed me was how many of the computers on the list I've owned over the years. I had an HP 100LX (#22, followed by an HP200LX), a Toshiba T1000 (#17, followed by a T1000XE), the aforementioned Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (#8) and Commodore Amiga A1000 (#7, followed by an Amiga 3000). I've also owned a lot of variations on computers from the list too such as two different Thinkpads, a Powerbook, an iMac, an Atari 800XL, an IBM-made PC (it was actually a PS/2) and a couple of Compaqs. Heck, my sister use to have a Kaypro II (#25, oh how I wish that hadn't ended up on the scrapheap).
Anyway, lists like this tend to stir up emotions so I think a lively debate is in order. What wasn't on the list but should have been? What was on the list and shouldn't have been? It would also be fun to hear which of those computers you've owned, which you wished you had owned and last but not least, if you had to pick one computer and computer ONLY from that list to use for the rest of your life, what would it be?