64 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
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"The World's Worst Computers", From CREATIVE COMPUTING, Sept 85.
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IBM PC
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A computer designed solely to dart and tag the micro market for eventual,
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inevitable domination by the Big Blue Behemoth.
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This machine virtually defines the phrase "user-hostile" with its non-
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resident DOS, piecemeal expaddability, and unintelligible documentation.
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...the first models misplaced a decimal point in certain calculations.
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IBM PCjr
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As Dan Ackroyd used to say on "Bad Theater" (Saturday Night Live), the IBM
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PCjr is "truly bad, almost unbearably putrid."
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It's heartening to see that even IBM can't get away with Chiclet keyboards,
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single disk drives, and memory limitations.
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Apple Macintosh
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Screen too small, disks too slow, architecture shut tight like a littleneck
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clam. (Macintosh is also number 1 on my "Seven Best Computers" list.)
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Commodore 64 (with disk drive)
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Waiting for Godot.
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Commodore Plus 4
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A machine must less powerful than the Commodore 64 that sold for twice the
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price. Built-in software was an embarrassment, every I/O slot redesigned to
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ensure incompatibility.
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Coleco Adam
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Tape drive unreliable, printer worked only sporadically, software full of
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bugs and without documentation.
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Too much new technology, too much hype, and not enough quality control
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resulted in a machine that rather than being all things to all people, turned
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many people against computers--perhaps forever.
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I wouldn't give one to a Cabbage Patch Doll.
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Rabbit
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Like the Aquarius I, this shoddy import from Hong Kong came without a
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spacebar.
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Sinclair ZX80
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With an unusuable keyboard and quirky keyword BASIC, this machine dis-
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couraged millions of people from ever buying another computer.
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Tandy MC-10
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A scaled down Color Computer. That's like saying a poor man's VW Beetle.
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The what?
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STM PC
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Illegible full-screen LCD, but could not be powered by batteries. Printer:
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thermal; width, four inches; speed, 10 cps; legibility, low. Only review I
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ever wrote that said "don't buy this."
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The least compatible PC compatible ever.
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Sord IS-11 (Lapsize)
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The operating system was so difficult to learn that by the time you got it
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down, the batteries ran out.
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All Cassette-Based Computers
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I'd rather enter Orwell's Room 101 and let rats gnaw on my face than
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attempt to load a program from cassette.
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By the way, the Apple II series was the only major computer type not snubbed.
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