The 20 Greatest Home Computers of All-Time!
The 20 Greatest Home Computers of All-Time!
In this video I countdown the 20 greatest home computers off all-time as voted for by my viewers and the retro gaming community.
Video Links:
50 Greatest Consoles of All-Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQbA7YddJCw
50 Greatest Systems of All-Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQgkgCsteQ
The 20 Greatest Arcade Games of All-Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px5mdoEa-vE
Retro Gaming Hysteria Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1174206102963529/
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lairdslair
#ZXSpectrum #Amiga #Atari
I am surprised by the absense of the Tandy 1000 line of computers. Some might view them as just an IBM PC clone, but the Tandy 1000 was the first time that high quality audio, graphics, and storage (HDD) came together in one machine, with a huge software library to boot.
"Tandy graphics and sound" dominated computing for five years (1984-89 and beyond). It existed because Tandy was trying to copy the PC Jr. That machine was a massive failure, so Tandy changed directions, aiming for PC compatibility, and succeeded.
I agree !!! 3 IBM PC Compatible CGA 2 Commodore Amiga and 1 C64 best computer ever !!!!
8:55 reminds me of exodus
I swear i watched more ads during this video then an entire day youtubing. Hope your kids enjoy university as i just watched enough ads to pay it.
Plus 4 woop woop , had one for Christmas still have fond memories of fire ant icicle works and treasure island
This list is pretty legit. A friend had the C64, I and a few others had Atari 800/XL/XEs, one of those upgraded to a 520ST, another friend had the Amiga 2000 (with the Video Toaster), we used the Apple IIs, Atari 800s and TRS-80s in junior high and high school computer classes, and I picked up an Amiga 1200 as well.
It was amazing to see the leaps a bounds these computers made in the span of time known as the 80s.
I was an Atari 800 kid (the only one I was aware of in my area), but I always wanted a C64 as I had a couple friends who had one, so I was aware of what it could do, especially that sweet SID sound chip. Believe it or not, most of the kids I knew who had home computers had either some sort of IBM PC clone, some variation or other of the Apple II, or a Mac (I’m American).
I did know one kid who had a TI-99/4A, and I only got to play a game on it once, it was a port of ‘Defender’, and I remember being impressed with it’s graphics. I was like 6 or 7 years old (it was the mid-eighties) at the time. I first discovered ‘Turrican’ and ‘Sim City’ at a buddies’ house in 1990-ish on his C64, and those two games were a couple of the main reasons I wanted a C64 back then.
I got a ‘TheC64’ recently and I love it. It’s interesting to play games that were on both C64 and Atari 8-Bit because I only played the Atari versions back in the day. Fascinating to see and play games that other kids grew up with and being able to contrast and compare them to my own childhood experiences with Atari machines.
Btw, just got my A500 Mini a week ago. I had an Atari ST in the early 90’s. LOL Here we go again…………
Hmmm…. The list is somewhat what I expected. But at the end you mentioned something that made me think. Is the RaspberryPI fact, every model of them combined? Or is it one specific RPI model that you are talking about?
I’ve only just found your channel. Otherwise the Speccy and ZX81 would have had an extra vote each, and the poor old Panasonic JR-100 would have had a single, solitary vote. No-ones ever heard of it, apparently. I got mine in the 80’s, second hand without software or instructions, and it’s the only one I’ve ever seen. LOL.
Great countdown.
Interesting compilation. However i have to wholeheartedly disagree with the assertion that Atari ST OS was better than Amiga OS. Amiga OS is one of the best operating systems ever put together.
I am not surprised, but for me it was Enterprise 128. Dad had it and that was awsome hardware, but not so big software library that used its capabilities… like 256 colors on that 8 bit machine…
As much as I am a fan/expert of the 6809 & Tandy Color Computer 3, I have to begrudgingly admit that the C64 is the greatest, followed by the Atari 800.
Why the C64? A few good reasons it was great:
1. Uses a great version of the 6502. The 65C10 had improved I/O.
2. Shipped with full 64kb at a time when other machines were often sold in multiple variations (16kb, 32kb, etc). This made the machine standardized in the community, speeding up development and adoption.
3. Fairly good 16 colors palette with colors that didn’t bleed on a TV screen. Very readable text, without pesky artefact colors messing it up.
5. The SID music/sound chip allowed the CPU to delegate sound and music, leaving it almost 100% available for running the program & graphics. Also, great sound chip design with multi voices and ASMR sound envelopes. All hardware.
6. Great dedicated community that strived to push the machine to its limits.
7. Acceptable keyboard (other 8bit computers were not all comfortable to the user’s hands).
8. PETSCII.
9. Amazingly good graphics resolution for the time (wide 320×200).
10. Hardware sprites. Although fairly limited, they made game development easier and further freed the poor CPU.
11. Overactive demo scene.
12. Lots of BBS.
13. Fairly good RGB monitor if you had the budget.
Why the C64 is great but not perfect:
1. Pedestrian cassette player system (very slow loading).
2. Poorly designed floppy drive, with an overpowered controller chip but flawed bandwidth control. Slow!
3. Some of the computer’s greatest features not directly accessible in basic, require tedious poke sequences.
4. Few productivity applications. (Hey, I had 3 word processors on my Coco3 and they were all superior to the ones available on the C64.)
5. Poor printers.
6. Fixed palette.
Amiga 1200 is the Best Computer of the All-Time! because Amiga 500 and Upgraded Amiga 1200 are the only Home Computers anyway.
Spectrum should have been higher, in the top 3.
Im surprised the X68000 didnt make the list.
To be fair, I didnt expect it to be near the top. It had very few sales, was only released in Japan and its sales were mostly to video game developers.
For those who arent aware of this computer, it was designed by Sharp Corporation. In an effort to differentiate itself from other computers at the time, Sharp designed a computer that could create a full arcade experience (in 1987). Many Japanese game developers looked at the hardware Specs of this computer when designing their arcade machines, and even the Sega Genesis itself is a severely watered down X68000. The computer itself had its influence on game (hardware) design, but the average consumer couldnt afford it.
I think that the list prior to the top 5 contains a lot of computers that mostly got votes due to being first owned or first used, instead of being objectively great computers. The top five are a bit skewed by an 8-bit preference. If we only count pre-VGA, then the PC is clearly 5th place, but would rocket into first if we count it in its current form. The Amiga will always beat out the ST due to having better sound and more colors. The 64 will always beat the Atari 8-bit due to what programmers could do with that extra 16K of memory. While I’d place the 16-bit systems ahead of the 8-bit ones, I have quite the collection of each due to my love of them.
I waited days to watch this because I knew it would be good and I didn’t want any interruptions 🙂 It did not disappoint…very well reasoned and presented!
Dad had 3 TI99/4A’s, 2 of them still sealed…and he had the Expansion Box, with floppy drives and a "hard card" for storage, and the Speech module.
Atari 8 bit systems were groundbreaking and the hardware held up against competitors for years. It deserves the #2 place.
I mean the IBM PC isn’t really a home computer but…
It should be #1 completely. That standard is the greatest of all time.
Wow! The Electron Frak has no flickering!!
Did you know in some quarters you are called a "Wotsit". If you can explain?
For me as a kid that didn’t know what I was getting into with computers, I mostly had the C64 and the Amiga 500, got a A1200 later on.
Most of the other computers on this list, I had at some point as my dad own a shop that sold a lot of stuff, including computers, anyway, none of them really clicked with me apart from the Amiga and the C64 and the Amiga was basically a revolution for me because it felt like the only computer that was powerful enough where you could do almost anything on it, from desktop publishing, art work, music creation and a million other things, it was also multitasking and it felt like it was the only one that could keep up with the consoles going into the 90’s, it was an all-rounder that give me the real taste of computing that isn’t that different to the PC now and what’s shocking is that it took for me at least, till the mid 90’s for the PC to fill that itch and even then it felt worse in some areas, that all changed around 2000 with Windows XP when there was no contest, the PC was better and the Amiga showed its age.
What’s really sad about the Amiga is that it was ahead of it’s time when released but Commodore didn’t realize what they had and didn’t push it hard enough, they didn’t release meaningful upgrades and it was only thanks to how advanced it was in the first place that it stay competitive until around 1995.
The Atari 800 deserved a high ranking. I had/have the C64 but always respected the Atari 400/800/XL. No ill will toward Atari 8 bit computers and their fans. Nothing but respect. I remember using Apple IIe machines mostly at school. They loaded software faster and had better expansion but other than that had nothing over the C64 especially at its reasonable price.
Thank you for including the best of all, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. It’s the machine I grew up with and it’s still going 40 years later. It’s the most expandable machine of the lot, better than the BBC, because I was lucky enough to get the Peripheral Expansion Box.
The original Atari 800 was pretty expensive at launch. Had it been equivalent in price to the competition it would have dominated. The conversions of Pac Man and Joust were perfect. Best I could do was pop into Laskys when it was quiet.
Great to see the beeb make the top 10, didnt expect that, but I do think the miggy shud have been top.
for us old enough to remember the first home PC such as the spectrum the vic 20 the acorn and BBC B they were considered purchases "easy credit" wasn’t available and at "100 to £200 they were not cheap and research had to eb done over a period of time before we got our mum down to rumbalows to sign up for it
OMG – so good to say a UK based 8bit computer countdown…
Loved this, took me back to 1984.
My first computer after my Atari VCS. Got me into computing and I’m still doing that to this day, 40 odd years later,
History:-
Atari VCS
Zx Spectrum 48k
Atari 800xl
Amstrad CPC-464
Then into pc’s
Then saw the light in 2008 and switched to Apple Mac’s
Thank you for an amazing trip down memory lane
I’m mad the PC98 isn’t on there but the QL is…
I got my start with a VIC 20. It will always hold a special place in my heart. But, it was the C64 that really cemented my interest in computers. It was an amazing machine, and I have nothing but love for the old bread bin system. A friend of mine had the 128, but he used it almost entirely to play C64 games. I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the old days.
For me the Amiga should be no 1 🙂
I can’t wrap my head around the Basic on the TI. I just can’t. It’s like trying to solve the gordian knot
Why is the QL even on here? It was meant for business, not games. All systems prior to Amstrad share the same architecture and hardware so the QL is not that big of a leap.
There was only one possible #1 😀
Alas, my poor forgotten CoCo 2.
Glad to see your videos have been getting more views. Well deserved.
Apple//e, and //gs, + Commodore 64 are great machines…Thank you very much indeed for posting the video.
I’m not surprised the Commodore PET didn’t get much mention from us in the States, out of that 1977 group of competing computers, the Apple II made the biggest impression on the general public.
Plus they pretty much cornered the American educational market for the following 15ish years, if you were a kid in school even as late as the early-90s, you more than likely laid hands on an Apple II and played Oregon Trail.
For me, the Speccy will always hold the #1 spot, and games like Lords of Midnight and Doomdarks Revenge just make it legendary.
Top World computers from an Englishman……
To me other than the x86 PC I really can’t pick another for the other two places. Since the computer market was always changing and all the ones I played with (but never owned kinda) had a special place in my heart so for me it’s just too hard to choose really. The "kinda" bit was before my first computer that I owned, and played with (a generic 386SX 25) I was given a broken C-64. I worked on it, and had it working right before a tornado (F3/EF4 grade) came, and destroyed it before I could load my first program. The systems I played around as a kid were the Apple II, Atari 8-bit , Tandy CoCo (models 2&3), Ti-99 4A, C-64, PET, and x86 PC (including the original IBM 5150.) Today I would love to grab any of these machines on the list if I can find one cheap enough that is, but until then I can just use emulation.
The results are not that surprising as youtube is international and machines like the C64 and MSX sold well internationally. Machines like the Atari 800 and Apple 2 were dear in the UK but a lot more affordable in other regions. I’m really surprised by the position of the Amstrad CPC because I knew no one who owned one and was never impressed when I used one. I was very much (and still am) a BBC and Acorn person. Learning to program the hard ware of a BBC micro and the ARM on the A3000 was the ground work for my entire career. I still program ARMs albeit indirectly most of the time now.
PS. the ARM isn’t just your phones, by your tables, Macs, set top boxes, and so on.
I only own the ZX Spectrum, so that’s my favourite. My uncle had an Amstrad.
The TI994/A was good once you got past the stock BASIC which was SLLOOOOOOOWW.
amiga 1200
The thing most people don’t appreciate about the Atari systems is just how amazingly well they were designed under the hood. Not just the hardware, but the software that drove it. The Operating Systems in both the 8-bit and ST lines were amazing for programmers, once you knew where everything was. I once saw the Kernel manuals for the Amiga and it was a much more complex beast to code, which is one of the reasons why, initially, the ST was receiving more games because programmers needed more time to get to grips with the Amiga. It’s a shame that Atari didn’t follow this philosophy with later models – the Jaguar was notoriously difficult to program.
The Atari ST was very important to musicians. Because it came with a MIDI port built in so early in the life of the protocol and was affordable, it single-handedly vitalized modern computer music by getting MIDI into the hands of the masses. And the software spawned by this feature, as we all know, survived the machine and even Atari itself.
Great video apart from the Spectrum travesty, which I’m choosing to remember in first place and no one can stop me!
I was lucky to have a VIC-20 and a C64 back in the day. I spent a LOT of time typing machine code into those two. Back then, magazines would come with games for free but you had to put them into the machine line by line. They also came with checksum routines to verify you didn’t screw it up typing it in.