“Misery, heartbreak, sorrow, and despair. No, I’m not talking about adolescence; I’m referring to what happens when you’re stuck with a PC from Hell. Systems that were overpriced and underpowered, parts that failed two days after the warranty expired, marathon phone calls with brain-dead tech support staff – over the years we’ve suffered more than our share of ills, and so have millions of other innocent PC users. But picking these 10 Worst PCs of All Time wasn’t as easy as it sounds.”
Well right after Packard Bell I would say Compaq. Most of the time if I saw a broken computer it was a Compaq. Either HP/Compaq Paid PC Wold to keep their Products off the list or Compaq Users never bother complaining about it to PC World users.
Hey-I feel proud having bought a #3 LOL! Oh well, it just goes to prove that teenagers “know it all”
Gotta love the way they list “Dell Launches Low Cost PC in China” as “Related Content” in the right sidebar.
Dude… you’re gettin’ a Dud. 😉
Edited 2007-03-23 23:26
It is really to bad. Back in the late 90s early 2000s Dells actually cost a little more then the average PC but people bought them because they were very high quality. (Much like people buys Apple Today) But they decided to get into the budget PC market. Which over time makes their perceived quality much lower. The same thing happened with Gate way during the Mid-90s During the Mid 90s Gateway 2000s were the PC to get they cost a bit more then the others but they were high quality. Then Gateway started competing with the budget PC and Quality Dropped and Dell came in and took its spot. I was originally going say AlienWare would take the spot but Dell bought them out.
“The same thing happened with Gate way during the Mid-90s During the Mid 90s Gateway 2000s were the PC to get they cost a bit more then the others but they were high quality. ”
This is true
My 1998 gateway solo 5100LS is still working till now; while 2004 gateway solo died with electric shock that grooved the optical disk drive leaving a streak in 2005!
I’d rank the original IBM PC as one of the worst. The quality of the hardware was fine, and it was certainly a success, but it was incredibly overpriced and underpowered compared with the alternatives.
Because of its poor colour graphics and small amount of preinstalled RAM, they consider the Vic 20 to be the 7th worst PC of all time. Yet the graphical capabilities of the original IBM PC (320×200 resolution, 4 colours) were inferior to many cheap 8bit computers, and the 16-64Kb RAM it offered was pretty poor for a 16bit computer running MS-DOS.
The Vic 20 may have been a low-end computer, but at least it was priced accordingly. The IBM PC cost significantly more than much more capable computers from other companies.
For example, compare it with the Victor 9000 (ACT Sirius S1 in Europe). For less money you got a system with twice the memory, a much higher resolution (800×400) display, and two high density (1.2Mb) floppy drives (compared with a single 160Kb drive on the PC). For it to be a usable machine the IBM PC really had to be upgraded from it’s basic spec, making it a much more expensive option.
It sometimes amazes me just how powerful the marketing and brand name of a product can be…
Aye, I remember the story about the [original] Mac engineers buying an IBM PC when they came out and taking it back to Apple to have a look at it. They were mortified at what they found. Shoddy, underpowered parts thrown together in a shoddy case, with even soddier software.
They had just finished pouring their heart and soul into building a machine with a custom board designed to use as few chips as possible (unlike the IBM PC which had many needless parts due to bad design) and with a mouse, a gui, a 3.5″ floppy drive and a 32-bit processor, and here was their successor, a bunch of underpowered bits thrown together in a box.
“””
and here was their successor, a bunch of underpowered bits thrown together in a box.
“””
It’s perennial enough to be cliche. But it is usually better to be good enough at the right price than to be the best at the wrong one.
Of course, I was just presenting it from their angle, given the work they had recently achieved.
The original Mac could have been cheaper, but there was perceived value in the technological advantages of the Mac. Apple didn’t understand that the user wasn’t technical enough to be aware of these differences, and was driven greatly by price.
Well, things have worked out pretty well for Apple. You don’t have to be the most popular to make a ton of money.
But the battle for popularity was really lost when regular folks started going out and buying computers… and they didn’t know anything about RAM or hard drives or resolution, or any of that technical stuff. But they did know one thing. And they new it because they had been told by one or more people… their spouse, a friend, a loved one, or perhaps that weird kid down the block that “knew about computers”. They knew that they wanted a machine that was “IBM PC Compatible”.
How do you compete with that?
Edited 2007-03-24 00:21
It’s perennial enough to be cliche. But it is usually better to be good enough at the right price than to be the best at the wrong one.
Except the IBM PC was significantly more expensive than many superior competitors. If you want to know why the PC was such a success, the price definitely isn’t the answer.
“If you want to know why the PC was such a success, the price definitely isn’t the answer.”
Note that the IBM PC and his (more or less) compatible successors had a serial port, which made him capable to be used with the already existing RS-232 communication standard. So it could be used by industry. Home consumers were not the customers the original PC was aiming at primarily, but industry was. So PCs could be easily programmable devices to communicate with other computers (i. e. mainframes) and to control electronic devices (machines). So industry bought them in masses. And because of a phenomenon we all know well, people wanted to have at home what they knew from their work. 🙂
Note that the IBM PC and his (more or less) compatible successors had a serial port, which made him capable to be used with the already existing RS-232 communication standard. So it could be used by industry.
The IBM PC was hardly unique in this. I know that the ACT Sirius S1 that I mentioned previously had two RS-232 ports, I understand that they were common on other business computers at the time. Even the Apple II, which predated the IBM PC, had RS-232 serial ports as an option.
I think the reason that industry bought the IBM PC is primarily down to their preexisting relationship with IBM. I’m not sure typical companies even seriously considered competing products before filling their offices with the IBM PC. They’d purchased IBM typewriters and other equipment, so naturally they went and bought IBM computers.
I don’t think you can really overstate just how powerful the IBM brand name was in business back then. The ‘nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’ effect.
They were mortified at what they found. Shoddy, underpowered parts thrown together in a shoddy case, with even soddier software.
The poor design decisions IBM made, as they rushed their PC to market, should be enough on their own to earn it a place on the list. Those initial mistakes haunted the PC for years to come, and forced a series of hacks and kludges that arguably still affect the PC today.
Having said that, if IBM had taken the PC more seriously and spent more effort designing it, we might not have PC clones on 95% of desktops today.
A system with lots of elegantly designed custom hardware, and a superior OS designed by IBM, would almost certainly have been a much better computer than the IBM PC running MS-DOS. However, it wouldn’t have been so easy for companies like Compaq to create compatible systems. It would still have been a success in the business world thanks to the IBM brand name, but would they have entered the home without cheap clones?
I disagree with the VIC 20 being in the top 10 at all. He has not compared the VIC 20 with any of its contemparies.
In 1981 the rivals for the VIC 20 were this;
ZX81 which had b&w graphics, 1kb ram and no sound.
Acorn Atom also b&w graphics, 3kb ram and 2 channel sound.
I disagree with the VIC 20 being in the top 10 at all. He has not compared the VIC 20 with any of its contemparies.
In 1981 the rivals for the VIC 20 were this;
ZX81 which had b&w graphics, 1kb ram and no sound.
Acorn Atom also b&w graphics, 3kb ram and 2 channel sound.
There were more capable computers available, the Apple II for example, but of course that was significantly more expensive.
I agree with you that the VIC 20 shouldn’t be on the list. Simply being less powerful than some higher priced products didn’t make it bad. Unlike the IBM PC I think it was great value compared with most of its comtemporaries.
The only thing really wrong with the VIC 20 was that the C64 followed it so quickly. It meant that VIC 20 users never enjoyed the huge selection of commercial software and peripherals available to BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Apple II and C64 users. Of course the hardware itself wasn’t to blame for that, it was just a very fast moving time and a lot of people found that their new computers were quickly superseded.
You forget the TRS-80 Color Computer, which came out in 1980 with color graphics, several kilobytes RAM (depending how much cash you were willing to offer Radio Shack), 1 channel sound (I think), and a CPU that made the competition look like morons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer
“ZX81 which had b&w graphics, 1kb ram and no sound.”
The XZ81 was a brilliant little machine, it cost next to nothing and a 16k memory add-on was cheap. It even had a sparky little printer. Mine still works 25 years later!
Of course its nothing to what we have today, but I cut my programming teeth on it with Sinclair Basic and assembler until the Spectrum came along.
Sinclair/Timex raised a whole generation.
>> Of course its nothing to what we have today, but
>> I cut my programming teeth on it with Sinclair
>> Basic and assembler until the Spectrum came along.
As someone who owned a ZX-80 (and upped it to the 8k ROM for ZX-81 compatability) I couldn’t agree more. It was the first series of machines that were truly affordable – the ZX-80 being a $199 kit when the next cheapest kit computer was well over $400, and nobody even offered a sub $600 assembled computer (the Atari 400 again topping the short list). We’re talking a 3.85mhz Z-80 processor when the top end offerings from both R$ and Apple were barely squeaking out 1.8mhz.
While at work and school I had access to much better machines, at the time of it’s introduction the ZX-80 was the best I, and a LOT of others, could afford at home. It is a testament to it’s simplicity that the TS1K continued to sell the same basic layout up until the late 80’s… Mostly from it’s low low price of $30 USD. For it’s time, it was the poor man’s C=64 and a good number of people’s introduction to the world of computing.
Besides, it sure beat the hell out of my first home computer, with it’s wire wrapped circuits and amazing user interface that consisted of nine toggle switches, 8 LED’s, 8 TTL lines (meant for motor control) and a single push-button. Switch one up, enter in binary the address on the other eight switches, push the button, switch one down, enter in binary the value to the memory location, hit the button. All switches down, start executing from the current address. That whopping 128 bytes of static RAM let you do all sorts of useful stuff.
>We’re talking a 3.85mhz Z-80 processor when the top end
>offerings from both R$ and Apple were barely squeaking
>out 1.8mhz.
You can’t compare the Z80 (as found in the ZX-8x, etc) and the 6502 (found in the Apple II, C64, etc) on MHz basis. Z80 was VERY CISC-ish, with a focus on big instructions that did lots but maybe used lots of cycles, while the 6502 was proto-RISCish, with an emphasis on a few simple instruction that executed quickly.
For simple integer math, a 1.8 MHz 6502 could do at least as well as a 3.5 MHz Z80, although the Z80 pulled ahead for anything involving 16-bit values, floating-point and moving large chunks of data in-memory.
R$ (as you put it) used the 6509, which is widely regarded as the most advanced 8-bit CPU ever…
In short things just weren’t that simple performance-wise.
>> R$ (as you put it) used the 6509, which is
>> widely regarded as the most advanced 8-bit CPU
>> ever…
Close, but no cigar – They used the 6809, and only in the Coco. Specifically:
Coco 1 & 2: 0.895mhz 6809E (you could poke an address to jump to 1.83mhz, but you lost video in the process)
Coco 3: 0.895mhz 68b09E (you could poke that to 1.83 and NOT lose the video, though some floppy controllers wierd out – a popular after market mod is to replace that with a Hitachi 6309 which opens up the possibility of 16 bit opcodes!)
The rest of the product line was:
MC-10: 0.895mhz 6803B which doomed it to failure for not being 6809 binary compatable
Model 1: 1.77mhz Z-80
Model 2: 4mhz Z-80C which OWNED just about everything else on the market in 1979 unless you got up to double the price with machines like the Mostek MD or Seattle Computing Gazelle, or went off the board with low count builds like AI Computing, Cyzern or Sord – it’s worth noting Cyzern ended up giving up on the high end market and making a model 1 clone
Model 3: 2.03mhz Z-80A
Model 4: 4mhz Z-80B which would have owned if not for coming out the same time as 8088 and 68000 powered machines – a common after market mod was a 6.3mhz Z-80D or a 8mhz Z80E, hooked to a turbo switch for compatability with older software (TRSDOS 1.x and 3.x didn’t like going faster than 2mhz – LDOS and TRSDOS 6 lacked these issues)
Model 12: 4mhz Z-80 Basically this was a single board model 2
Model 16: 4mhz Z-80 and 8mhz 68000 Add a high res card, and you had the equal of the original Mac from a hardware perspective! Impressive specs for a year and a half before the LISA hit shelves
Model 100/102/200: 2.4mhz 80c85
Model 600: 3.07mhz 80c88
Which I believe is all of them (excluding minor varients like the 4P – which I have one of…) before they switched to calling them Tandy’s with the 2000 and later 1000 series. (ah, the tandy 2000 – best machine nobody wanted)
Don’t know where you got that rubbish about the 6502 being equal on integer ops at lower clock speeds, since integer ops on both averaged 2-4 clock cycles. There was a slight advantage in the number of registers, but those REALLY were offset by the very things you listed. The only real reason the atari and commodores based on the 6502 were able to hold their own was the sheer volume of support chips put into those boxes in terms of offloading video and audio… Which doesn’t explain the Apple 2, but then Apple’s appeal has always been hard to explain.
With the video off, the ZX-81 was a genuine BRUTE on the CPU side – the next closest available at the time of it’s introduction being the three thousand dollar TRS-80 Model 2… though the only reason they used so fast a CPU in the first place was because 70-80% of it’s clock cycles were spent on a cmp, jz and out to a ttl line flop to drive the composite video via brute force off the CPU… which was fairly ingenious given the number of componants that let them NOT put on the machine, keeping the price down (a good CRTC chip at the time ran more $$$ than a CPU), even if it did drag the performance down to the same as if it was running at 1mhz. Video off though for heavy duty calculations – Rock and Roll. I remember a number of people actually made their own 16k Roms, with the bottom 12k being the default z-80 4k and ZX-80 8k roms, but the top 4k being a ISR that trapped keyboard and video, and output them to a serial port adapter (daisy chained in next to the RAM) to be used from dumb terminals or equivalent programs on slower machines like the Model 1 or Apple II. People even chained them together since they were so cheap – which was probably the inspiration for the Sinclair QL’s networking capabilites.
Sort of a poor man’s data cluster. Ah, those were the days, when getting your hands dirty with a soldering iron was at least semi-practical to attempt.
Edited 2007-03-25 23:54
Nice to know that Packard Bell were so bad that they dropped out of America and came here. You’ll be happy to know that PB still hold the number 1 spot for worst computers in Europe too.
Packard Hell? I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes dishonest computer shops try to sell them to unexperienced first time buyers.
It happened to me in the UK when I bought my first laptop. I soon realized what a rubbish it was. I had to struggle very hard before I could have it replaced with a HP.
Unfortunately my parents haven’t been able to resist the urge to by a Packard Hell serveral times. Even when the specs seemed decent, it turned out to be a shitty performing piece of crap. Fortunately my parents learned their lesson, but the expense was too high (any euro spent on that company is).
I don’t know how this computer made the list when so many other more deserving computers didn’t…
My sister bought a Barbie Computer and it’s still working fine to this day. My niece still uses it.
It’s not a powerhouse, but it’s fine for a child.
The VIC-20 didn’t deserve to be on there either.
I can think of some Compaq Models that should have been there and a couple of Tandy machines too.
“Misery, heartbreak, sorrow, and despair. No, I’m not talking about adolescence; I’m referring to what happens when you’re stuck with a PC from Hell.“
Don’t you mean a PC from Dell?
zx81 ?? how dare thee add this to the list of worst computers ever, the big man was a fine specimen of home computing when it arrived, sure who cares if it only came with 1k ram, you could by a 16k expansion 🙂 who cares that you typed most of the software in basic and it sometimes hung when you ran out of k … that was bleeding edge fella, bring back those days of fun fun fun !!!
Ohh and why is the commodore +4 not on that list, i got one of those for xmas one year and how dissapointed was i when i couldn’t install c64 games 🙁 all this would run was c16 games with more space to move, or indeed c16 style games expanded, icicle works .. yum ! .. well it least it had a built in debugger/assembler mode …
And as for packard bell, this was my first pc, a 8meg pentium 75 bad boy with win 95 .. ahh the hours of fun i had with that, no complaints at all …
</wavy lines>
Man i loved my TI-99/4A, was my first computer ever, first games, first programs. As a child trying to learn computing, it was an excellent machine imho. Simple yet powerfull. And looking at the specs i think it did great at the time.
My dad told me he bought it because it was the first domestic computer with a 16-bit processor
I certainly would place it in “The 10 best PCs of All Time” right beside the Amiga!
“Initially, the TI-99/4A was reasonably successful, and it has been estimated that it had about 35% of the home computer market at its peak.”
“All TI-99 models, from the earliest TI-99/4 to the unreleased TI-99/2 and TI-99/8, included “plug and play” support for all peripherals. Device drivers (called “Device Service Routines”, or DSRs) were built into ROMs in the hardware; when a new card was inserted, it was immediately available for any software which needed or wanted to use it. All device access utilized a generic file-based I/O mechanism, allowing new devices to be added without updating software to use it.”
Excellent wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A
Edited 2007-03-24 03:47
I have a fairly strong memory of the TI-99 using bubble memory in some way.
But none of the sources I have checked mention anything about it.
Is it just a false memory, or is there some grain of truth to it somewhere?
I had to laugh when I saw this one on the list; my parents have one.
It’s worked perfectly with only three exceptions thus far-
One, for some reason even after reinstalling and talking to tech support, the CD burner always fails halfway through (unless you run K3B in Knoppix).
Two and three, I’ve run Linux liveCDs on it twice and both times, the machine refuses to boot after shutting down because a RAM chip has become physically unseated. I can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for how such a thing could happen- it has to be a coincidence… but I’m not trying Knoppix or Elive on that thing any more.
EDIT: Oh, and I was surprised to see the VIC-20 on there, too. Sure, it wasn’t a C=64, but I’ve never heard of it being so terrible.
Edited 2007-03-24 03:36
Weird. I’m typing this on a Dimension 4600. It has given me zero hardware trouble. I keep the thing on 24/7. Sometimes I rip 2 CDs at once, so essentially every component (except the floppy drive) is drawing power, and I’d guess that would stress the power supply a bit. I had no idea that it had such a reputation. I guess I’m lucky.
You’re *very* lucky. Perhaps you got one of the revised PSU’s, ’cause I had one too and it failed spectacularly. Right now I’m still using a Dell (it’s a solid Dimension E520), but this Dell really is 10x better than the machines they built 3-5 years ago.
I would much rather nominate the machine I have now- the Dell Inspiron 8500.
Two major problems:
One, the Dell Inspiron 8500 and 8600 are made out of less-than-rigid plastic, so you can actually, if you rest your elbow on the left palmrest, destroy your hard drive.
Two, the power supply piece that connects the power adapter to the computer is made of some funky kind of plastic that eventually cracks when strained and isn’t terribly flexible. I’m now on my third power supply and it’s showing the telltale splitting and bare wires… but the machine is going out of warranty.
This thing is also having issues with overheating- the heat sink and/or fans just aren’t doing their job any more. I think that’s old age though; this laptop is about 3 1/2 years old.
Almost all PCs have a problem or more.
This is the computing nature; add a complicated hardware parts to a complicated software parts and you would get a super critical piece of complication.
That’s why Real Time OS based machines which are used in critical computing are very simple compaired with a desktop PC; they would just use one or more simple hardware parts with a software written in thousands of code lines (if not hundereds).
So, if you know how much you want from your system, you would probably end up building the best system, lean and mean!
“So, if you know how much you want from your system, you would probably end up building the best system, lean and mean!”
Exactly. Choose the parts with quality and your needs in mind. Also keep in mind what OS you are going to use (example: don’t buy an ATI card for Linux, and possibly not an ADSL modem or a widescreen monitor)
Then build it yourself or have it built by a friend.
It is amazing how people remember the duds like old Compaq’s to the infamous Dell lemons you are stuck with. One thing they are have in common is ‘Made in China’ stamped on the all the parts. Since IBM sold off their pc/laptop line to ‘China’ the quality has really gone down hill. Electronics are cheaper but the price is in the quality the old video card I found was ‘Made in USA’ and you could use to chop down a small tree!
Just like the Dell servers they can be brand new and have defective memory, boards, cpu’s, on and on. We went from manufacturing to importing everything only now we have ourselves to blame…
Somehow I doubt PCs would be higher quality just because they’re Made in the U.S.A. More expensive, yes.
I disagree the quality of hardware if it was Made in the USA the quality would be 10 times better because you would have 10 times the competition nowadays….
All of the hardware Made in China is the China quality which is ZERO or just JUNK. That is why you see tons of servers with problems that are brand new. The same goes with laptops/pc’s software problems are root cause coming from junk hardware, motherboards, memory, cpu’s ect….
All of them ?
Yeah right Cleetus, go back to your cousin, she is getting cold.
Yeah right go back to pre-school and learn how to build a website…
Like your site ?
Sorry, I dont want to see pics of Daisy-Sue picking straw out of her ass.
Oh, and when you say “build a website…” do you mean use Dreamweaver or Flash or some other shit like that ?
Well at least mine loads without hanging up and does not look like fisher-price helped with it…
I am surprised you have computers where you are at when did you get one yesterday
?
You got it wrong it is Daisy Duke and she has straight teeth and a nice body I can’t say that from where you are from…..
Edited 2007-03-24 22:59
HEHE nice comeback man !
funny, my packard bell (16mbyte, 75 mHz) wa smy first computer. It is still running fine to this day…….it’s the compaq presario I uprgraded to that gave me problems.
Funny, what with eMachines taking off, selling new machines (and laptops!) at wal-mart even into the $200-$300 range, I still think a “children’s PC” could take off… including a router with wireless network card so the kids could put the computer in their room away without having to turn the office or living room into a rat’s nest of network cables, and so the parents could put blocks on what their children could and could not access over that connection.
And you could still color it pink or blue and include educational programs and kid-friendly games, of course.
(And maybe a simple kid-friendly version of BASIC or C, or even KPL. Might as well start getting kids used to the idea of programming their own computers again…)
Edited 2007-03-24 05:18
So you’re thinking of a consumerized OLPC?
Well, no. OLPC is untested GPL software running on untested experimental hardware. I’m talking about making something out of hardware and software that’s proven, supported, and (most importantly) made of common, everyday equipment that is already out there.
There’s a reason they’re doing “beta” deployments of an OLPC. That’s “testing.” GPL software is also tested in just about the same way as the meaningful testing that occurs on commerical OSes. Sure, they don’t have extensive regression test suites, like Microsoft does. But most meaningful tests occur through the betas and internal users of software. This is the exact sort of testing that the GPL software gets the most of. And when someone finds a bug, they can do more than just report it and wait for it to be fixed in the source: they can fix it themselves and submit a patch (though the reporting method is what practically happens in large and stable open-source projects).
I think GPL is a good method for producing software of a certain type, and that neither proprietary, commercial software nor OSS software has a monopoly on good (or bad) design and implementation.
I am from the UK, and I do not think there was 1 TRS-80 actually sold over here.
There were of course other machines that I ignored from that time, but you can find all about them at one of my favourite sites….
http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
Check the museum section. That has excellent indexing on computers by year, alphabetically, manufacturers. Original artwork, and best of all, emulators if they are available.
What the crap is this ?
Who was stupid enough to buy this thing ?
There is one in your attic.
I don’t think the TI-99/4A and the VIC-20 deserve to be in that list either. The VIC-20 had its defects, but as a cheap colour computer it was the protagonist of a little revolution, without which there would have been no C64.
I always thought the TI-99/4A was quite a successful computer, and technologically “advanced” for the times, and for the customers it was aiming at. My uncle had one and I remember playing on it with great pleasure.
Of course a lot of these considerations depend on personal experiences, but looking at early home computers, it’s not difficult to find many machines much worse than the VIC-20 and the TI-99/4A, although much less famous.
The list includes the Ti-99/4, not the Ti-99/4A.
It had to be a Packard Bell. They are the worst engineered computers out there, even an hand-crafted pc is better
Just wondering…
Are you insinuating that hand-crafted pc’s are badly engineered?
Because in my experience, those things last a LONG time. I don’t think most people who build their own pc’s grab super cheap no-name parts, and know how to put the things together/configure an OS etc.
I had a five year old athlon 2200+ that just died…And that thing was ABUSED.
Not to mention, I doubt your Dell/HP is going to be put together with any TLC…
Ever since I started building my own PCs I have yet to have the trouble I used to have with factory assembled models. I really can’t see where you get the idea that hand built PCs are badly engineered.
When you buy off the shelf components and roll your own, you at least have the option to replace faulty parts or upgrade the system with your choice of component, as your system will use standard interfaces. When you buy a factory assembled system, often the interfaces used are either non standard or proprietary, which usually translates into having to buy upgrades or replacements from the original manufacturer. This invariably drives the price of an upgrade sky high or forces you to buy a new system.
You mostly find this kind situation when looking at replacing the motherboard, power supply or processor. The front panel and/or power supply connectors are usually not compatible with standard motherboards, forcing you to buy a new case/PSU and the processor socket usually has a strange clip or grove which again will either not take a standard processor or will not allow you to use your old processor with a new motherboard as these processor dies have been specially designed to use these clips/groves.
Bad engineering indeed!
Instead of the Barbie PC (which was a generic clone) and the VIC-20 (actually faster with Disk I/O than the Commodore 64, and incredibly expandable), I would have picked the Compaq Presario line (perhaps the only line of computers as bad as the Packard Bell ones, but HP buys a lot of advertising on that site and also makes a lot of enterprise products that probably would not be available for review if they got slammed) and the Commodore 16 (just like the +4, but without a modem port and only 16K RAM).
At least with the Commodore 16 you have a product that was severely underpowered going up against the competition, which was the C= 64 and 128, was not compatible with C= joysticks or tape drives (though it did have an IEC port), and also could not run C= 64/128 programs.
In other words, it really didn’t have a reason to exist.
Plus4 was about the same power as the very succesful C64, but didn’t run the tons of software, and cost the about the same, Possibly a better computer, but even the people given the job of making it could justify anyone buying it instead of a C64.
And on a similar note, Amiga 600, cost more than 500+! Despite being less expanadable, and no more powerful.
A cheap entry level A300/Junebug Amiga would have been a great idea, but they got it so baddy wrong!
Nothing wrong with the Vic20 though.
I wouldn’t list the Colecovision ADAM here. In 1983, my father picked up two ADAM computers when they went on clearance as COLECO entered rough times. Both computers ran us under $200 a piece and never gave any problems. If your timing was right, the ADAM was a great investment.
Despite Colecovision’s business/design blunders, the ADAM maintained a good host of features and innovation at a reasonable price. High-Bias audio cassettes were used to store programs and data–a cheap alternative to (and sometimes even more reliable than) the floppy disks of those days. The printer didn’t have crappy dot-matrix quality issues, as it used a type-writer style typeball to imprint the letters onto paper.
Gaming on the ADAM was certainly another strong point in my opinion. Along with COLECO’s own collection of cartridge games and cassette games, there was an inexpensive module you could insert to play ATARI’s games as well—bringing you access to a huge gaming library. Personally, I addicted to the COLECO version of BUCK ROGERS… my only complaint was that 5-hours of straight gaming often left blisters on my left thumb.
The joystick was cool. Boasting a full numeric keypad in addition to the standard buttons/stick, the ADAM’s joystick offered a unique, functional design that added flexibility to interacting with game content. When not being used for gaming, the joystick could also be attached to the side of the keyboard and act as a numeric keypad.
My ADAM computers never died. Over 20 years later, both of my Colecovision ADAMs are still operational and even enjoy an occasional game of Carnival or Buck Rogers. I can’t say the same regarding the longevity of some of my more recent workstations.
So, yeah, I’m going to wholeheartedly disagree with this computers ranking. The review seems to omit many positive aspects of the ADAM.
I’m surprised to see that the Cube didn’t make into that list (despite the brief mention on the Apple III section). I virtually drooled over that elegant case when I first saw it to the point that I would fork serious cash to get one but I still remember the owners complaining all over the internet about the shoddy case, with cracks everywhere. Some said that the thing would literally fall apart over itself.
It is still regarded as one of Apple’s biggest blunders of all times…
Well I have a Dell Dimention 4550 and havent had any problems with it. But its scary to think that a 4600 could have a faulty power supply when I’m pushing the 4550’s 250 Watt one with a 9600XT, Two DVD drives, additional RAM, and a second harddrive.
Anyway, my next system wont be a Dell, even if they put Linux on them. Dell’s are cheap plastic things and inferior to the systems my friends have (Hotrod gaming systems with neon lights and what not).
Here are a couple of computers that deserve Honerable Mention on the Ten Worst list:
IBM 300PL is the most irritating computer I’ve owned. The absolute worst onboard components ever designed. There was an AGP slot, but most AGP cards won’t fit – not without cutting a hole in the case. A SoundBlaster 16 did fit in the case, and was a stunning improvement over the onboard junk. But the onboard sound could not be completely disabled, forever causing hardware conflicts when using Solaris and other operating systems.
Apple Cube. Dispite an attractive design, it was incredibly overpriced and didn’t include even basic components. Weren’t there some cooling problems as well?
Mattel Aquarius. Not a terrible computer overall, but it had some significant flaws. Everything was an add-on. There were very few software titles. And typing on a ‘chicklet’ keyboard is the pits.
Timex Sinclair 1000. Did anyone actually enjoy using that?
The luggable Kaypro computers were a dramatic improvement over the previous selection, but one feature deserves a big raspberry. For an item designed to be carried by business travelers, why on earth would they made it with sharp metal corners? Imagine rushing through an airport, and…
-Bob
The Internet Computer they’ve got there was actually called the Network Computer, and it was obvious it was never going to work. Network connections aren’t even good enough now, let alone back then. Also, there was no infrastructure or software even at the server end for it. A good pointer as to how Oracle, and Sun, just didn’t understand what was required from a desktop.
I have one of those eMachines. I bought it when it came out to have a unix server at home. I just turned it off a week or two ago. It was total junk as far as performance goes, but it was on 24/7 as a little file server/devel box.
Perhaps a fluke, perhaps just not running Windows.
I would very much like to nominate my work computer, a 3 year old “Goatway”. I’d give you a model number, but I don’t remember it off the top of my head. It’s a special educational model sold only to schools, though.
My previous work computer was a Gateway, built before they merged with eMachines. I called him Maxwell, and he had his own little NVidia card with 16 megs of RAM, 256mb of RAM and a PIII 750, and never gave me any problems. (Then again, he only ran W98se, so we wern’t asking too much of him.)
My current work computer, aka “Desktop Doorstop” has a vile Intel 845 integrated graphics chip, and despite a P4 @ 3.04 ghz and a gig of RAM I get ghosting, lag time, incorrect screen draws, and is frankly crap for multitasking. It’s on its third hard drive — this time a Western Digital — because both Maxtors failed within a year.
I would dearly love to go in to my closet and pull out an old video card from my stack o computer spare parts and stick it in and at least free myself from crappy Intel video, but not only is it a slimline case, it doesn’t use standard PCI slots. Thus, if you want a video card, you’ve got to buy a special one from Gateway. (Bastards!)
I shiteth thee not when I say that my 2002 MDD PowerMac Dual 867 runs rings around the Doorstop under load. I can be playing iTunes and doing something in Dreamweaver and open up both Opera and Firefox and start flipping between programs, and tabs, and start dragging and resizing windows with only very minimal slowdown.
Not so on the Doorstop. If I have the same programs open and try to flip between two programs or tabs in the browers, I have to wait for the computer to draw the screen. (Seriously, I stare at a blank white box for up to 45 seconds.) And until that is done, I can do NOTHING.
(We are getting new work computers soon. Fingers and toes are crossed.)
Edited 2007-03-24 19:33
Sounds like bad intel drivers to me. Are you sure you’re not running just the SVGA drivers? Try installing the latest ones: http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/filter_results…. . Also, when this event happens, try looking at the Task Manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC to open it up) and see if anything’s pegging the CPU while this is happening.
Last, but not least, make sure your harddrive is in DMA mode… this is the usual culprit when a Windows machine is running slowly (at least when you don’t find two AV programs installed at once on someone’s machine). This can be found by going to the Advanced Tab of the properties for your Primary IDE channel. Your drive might drop to PIO mode if it encounters many read errors and this might not have been set back to DMA if you ghosted the image from the Maxtor to WD drive.
If people have an egregious performance problem with a computer, it probably means that something is misconfigured or failing. Of course it’s often tempting to complain rather than putting some effort into fixing the problem.
I have already checked drivers and have the most current ones for the 845 chipset. (They’re a couple of years old, actually.)
I have already checked the DMA mode thing and Task Manager and no, no surprises there. (Keep in mind I’ve always got Zenworks and AV software running in the background.)
Personally, I suspect the primary culprits are an unholy trinty of:
1) Integrated Vampire Video.
2) 5400 rpm hard drive.
3) Motherboard — I have no idea what the bandwith between system memory, processor, and video chip is. I have no idea what kind of southbridge and northbridge controlers I’ve got, because it’s a proprietary “goatway” board.
But seriously, the thing’s a frelling sled and there will be no love lost when they take it from my desk.
Edited 2007-03-25 06:01
Nice to see Packard Bell came out swinging – still the undisputed leader.
eMachines in their earlier incarnations (not sure about today) were really horrible. I remember working on a couple brand new ones for a “friend” and watching the hardware degenerate into useless plastic and metal in front of my eyes.
Also: I can never forget my first Compaq Presario – the one that required removing the PSU to add RAM. Nice one, guys. Shame it didn’t get honorable mention here.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the Packard Bell line (all of it) in the #1 slot, the inclusion of the Vic-20 and TI-99/4 series threw me a bit.
The Vic-20 was the FIRST sub $300 computer to include a full size, full travel keyboard – the MOS VIC chip blew away ANYTHING available from competitors for video when it came out… what are they using for contemporaries to make this comparison? The Coco still had a chiclet keyboard at the time, and it’s ‘semi-four color’ 256×192 graphics mode and 128×192 eight color modes were certainly no match for the 176×184 in 16 colors you could get out of the original MOS Vic… Sure, it only came with 4k of RAM, but so did the coco of the era in the price range, and a memory upgrade was as simple as plugging in a cartridge… and you didn’t NEED a lot of RAM when you had hardware sprites, hardware multi-voice multi-timbral sound, and a bunch of other hardware that was WAY ahead of it’s time – and any hardware you COULD complain about, well, was identical on the C=64 so…
As to the TI-99/4, the “At a time when all other home machines connected to your television” is like “Since ******* when?”. The thing came out in 1979, when a lot of people still had black and white TV’s at home, an RF modulator capable of the graphics modes used by the /4 cost almost as much as the computer ITSELF… I mean, there’s a reason the Trash-80 Model 1, 2 and 3 all came with their own displays, the PET came with it’s own display – even the highly vaunted Apple 2 was usually sold with a composite monitor (Though in Apple’s case it was that their RF modulator wouldn’t pass FCC specs!). That alone makes it obvious that when it comes to anything before 1985 the folks at ‘PC World’ have no frelling clue.
But then they go on about it’s chiclet keyboard – which frankly for a 1979 computer with color is par for the course and nothing to single it out for. Coco, MC-10, ZX-80/ZX-81/TS-1K/Spectrum, Atari 400, Grundy New Brain, these all came AFTER the TI-99/4 and were either chiclet or worse, MEMBRANE keyboards…
I mean, the only ‘contemporaries’ I can think of with a real keyboard AND an RF out would be the Atari 800 and the BBC Atom. That’s a pretty short list.
Add in that BOTH of those machines never really had any reliability problems, worked as advertised, and sold like hotcakes… they really shouldn’t be on a ‘worst’ list.
PC World, some advice, GAFC.
Edited 2007-03-24 22:07
raver31 + Southern.Pride,
Not to rain on your love fest, but for f’s sake, relax!
It’s Saturday. Get out and have a beer. I highly recommend Hoegaarden if you’re into wheat beers.
Was made by Advent – Model T8
http://www.pcservicecall.co.uk/layout.aspx?ID={0ec91203-c630-4f9f-8…
The hardware is fine, except the case. There was no air flow through it at all. It was incredibly noisy and the only air intake could get clogged with dust in no time.
Since then I now select the parts I need and build the PC my self. We all start some where.
Edited 2007-03-25 15:45
I think the Sinclair QL should be somewhere near the very top of the list. I owned one (sigh), I know. Not to mention it’s laughable peripherals.
For those lucky guys that never had to deal with a QL this (long) article could be enlightening:
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/ql/ql_sst.htm
Early QLs had quality problems and the QL was a badly flawed computer out of the box. Mainly due to the ridiculous tape drives and ZX Spectrum+ style keyboard. However, once the bugs were worked out and upgrades were available, it was a great business computer for a bargain price.
I bought one with dual 3.5″ floppy drives, a decent keyboard, 640Kb RAM, and a number of other peripherals. It included an excellent office suite, various other apps and programming languages, and had a multitasking OS that was much more sophisticated than DOS. The whole lot cost significantly less than a basic IBM PC and offered a whole lot more.
I dug it out fairly recently and it still works fine. Definitely one of the best computer purchases I made in the 80s. I think it deserves to be on a list of the most underrated computers, not a list of the worst.
Perhaps surprisingly there’s still a keen QL enthusiast community producing new software and hardware. There’s even a 68060 based QL compatible available (http://www.q40.de/), not to mention a Linux port to QL hardware. Not too bad for a failed computer…
Wow.
Never seen that Chix comming.
What a stinker.
🙂
-Hack
Should read:
with the bottom 12k being the default ZX-80 4k and ZX-81 8k roms
my bad.