#ibm pcjr

[cherrie01]

source

[commodorez]

IBM’s Odd Duck: The Life and Times of the PCjr – Dan Fitzgerald

A spectacular commercial failure and a major corporate embarrassment for IBM, the PCjr was a weird little machine priced without a market and given a feature set that left nobody happy. And yet, it managed to leave an impact that would be felt for a generation of PC gamers. Come meet the system that gave the world King’s Quest, the first commercially-available wireless keyboard, and spawned the “Tandy-compatible” PC gaming market of the late 1980s.

VCF East XIX

[asspull3x]

How is the A3X different from the Amstrad Mega PC or Sega Teradrive?

Easy. It's really more like an IBM PCJr.

The Mega PC and Teradrive were two pretty much separate systems in a single case (an IBM PC and a Megadrive), with a switch on the front to decide which of the two is on screen.

The PCJr was a single system that happened to have both a diskette drive and a cartridge slot.

The A3X also is a single system with both a diskette drive and a cartridge slot. It just also has a console-like tile graphics mode. And any program code running on the A3X, be it from cartridge or disk, can use it.

[saleintothe90s]

500. The 1984 Olympics Sports Illustrated Preview Issue (July 18, 1984) Part 1.

I'm totally late, but aren't we all having a little bit of Olympic withdrawal? This was a big magazine for me as a kid, big. My mom got it for me at the thrift store in 1994 when I was 10 because at the time I collected old issues of Sports Illustrated for the figure skating articles. This issue was massive, about five hundred pages. Five hundred pages of ads and photos I still remember 30 years later.

Like this Levi's ad! I still remember the lady in her maternity jeans, and how the kids couldn't wear riveted Levi's to school because they'd scratch up the desks.

There were several extended profiles of athletes that were expected to win big in Los Angeles, such as Carl Lewis.

Carl Lewis: mall lover.

Embarrassing baby photos of the athletes were a common occurrence.

I forgot to mention the Renault Fuego when I did that write up on Renault's short lived visit in the States.

I thought the Chrysler Laser was a thing in Canada, and we in the U.S. had the Plymouth Laser. No! We had the Chrysler first for a couple of years and then we had the Plymouth for a few years? That Lee Iacocca made things so confusing. I've mentioned before that I grew up alongside my niece and when we were in high school, she bought a used green Laser, and I was so jealous.

Autoweek went looking for one of the special 1984 Olympic edition GMC Jimmys, but couldn't find one.

I love that its a heartwarming story about how Bill Toomey almost didn't win the 1968 decathlon, and then its just ...screwdrivers at Sears.

I've spent thirty years trying to figure out what album German swimmer Michael Gross has against his stereo. Bap? Rap? I'm gonna eBay image search it. Okay, so it is a German album by Bap.

1984 was definitely the first 'puter Olympics. Not the first internet Olympics like Atlanta or Nagano, but one where computers were definitely advertised. Looks like the closest Sears Business Systems Center to me was in Virginia Beach where a Shake Shack is today.

When I was a kid looking at this ad, I thought that was the real Charlie Chaplin, and he was still alive in 1984 selling IBM PCJr computers with those awful keyboards. Clint from LGR called the space bar a "gooey celery stick".

This was a sweet section about athletes reminiscing about their time during the first Olympics held in LA back in 1932. The hop step and jump is what we would call the triple jump today. The Sports Illustrated vault is absolute garbage now, but you can still read the text from the other athletes profiled. Ellen Preis the Frencer from Austria had a heck of a story:

ELLEN PREIS AUSTRIA FENCING, INDIVIDUAL FOIL

When we arrived in the United States, we met the mayor of New York. I can't remember his name [it was Jimmy Walker], but I remember he made a lot of funny jokes. He took us to Sing Sing, which was both interesting and a great shock. We sat in the electric chair. It felt awful. Afterward we saw criminals on Death Row, and I felt very sorry for them. Then they took us to a laboratory, and we saw 42 jars containing the brains of criminals who had died in the chair. I was very young, and it made a strong impression.

I still haven't forgotten this ad, Fisher. It totally worked.

Part 2 coming soon.

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[boredtechnologist]

King's Quest for the IBM PC jr

[allhailkingsquest]

“One of the rarest items in my gaming collection: ‘King's Quest,’ published by IBM for the doomed PCjr in 1984. I found this copy of King's Quest about a year ago when a local friend alerted me that a house near her was being gutted, and that there was a huge dumpster outside literally overflowing with old computer stuff. I spend a deliriously-happy couple hours pulling out all kinds of cool stuff, but when I found this copy of KQ1, I just about lost my mind!

“Here are all the contents of the box: the printed manual, the original program disk, the hand-made copy of the game the original owner was legally entitled to create, and a mail-in certificate allowing the buyer to get one backup copy of the disk.” - Huxley Dunsany 🧵 

[pigswithwings]

hi whats ur favorite computer. other than the imac g3. :]c if you cant choose one then you can mention multiple.

RAAAAAHHHHH 🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯 IBM PC JR !! COMMODORE AMIGA 500 AND 1000 !! BCC MICRO !!! WANG 2200 !!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAHH

[lonelyrollingstar]

Cleaning my beautiful baby boy today

[legacydevice]

IBM PCjr

[foone]

Trick or treat! 🦇

Here's an IBM PCjr keyboard

[visualsine]

@imperfectlovesong https://lecollector.net/product/ibm-pc-personal-computer-tablo-paris-hard-enamel-lapel-pin/ <- expensive and not a pcjr BUT better than the tumblr one by far. if anything its cool looking at all the listing photos for this and other pc pins ^_^

[commodorez]

Top 5 worse computers from the 80s

While I'm sure someone could come up with a more definitive well-curated list, here's what I came up with on a whim: Sinclair ZX-81 The ZX-80 was a good, inexpensive step forward for the burgeoning UK computer market. Its successor, the ZX-81, tripped and fell rather than do anything beyond streamlining it for mass production. A real pain in the ass to type on, and notoriously flaky to do any serious work on. Localized in the US as the Timex-Sinclair 1000, it was too weak to really compete with the American market. British users seem to like them but I'd chalk up most of that to nostalgia goggles.

Apple III Apple tried and failed to make a business machine, and Jobs got his way a bit too much, and it overheated alot because he mandated that it couldn't have a fan. Ultimately, it confused people and was surpassed by better Apple II's. A weird footnote in Apple failures.

IBM PCjr The answer to a question that nobody asked. Crappy wireless keyboard, intended to be bolted to your home television. Cartridges? On an IBM? WTF is that? The expansion options are hot garbage. Eventually it was upstaged by the Tandy 1000 at its own game. Just get a PC XT. Or a Tandy.

Coleco Adam Likes to erase its own tapes if you leave them in the drive on power-up due to an electrical surge it shoves through the tape mechanism. The main system power supply is integrated into the printer, so you NEED the chonky printer to be plugged in for it to work. Has those weird phone pad + joystick hybrid controllers. Just get a ColecoVision to play your cartridge games.

Commodore Plus/4 I was going to take a stab at the MAX Machine, but Commodore did worse with the whole concept of the Plus/4. This thing was too cheap for its own good, and went in a completely bonkers direction at the behest of Jack Tramiel. It's supposed to be a cheap business machine to eat the ZX Spectrum's lunch. Why go after the little guy from the UK market? Who knows. Lame rubber chiclet keyboard, totally incompatible with existing Commodore software and most peripherals, and having 121 colors can't save it from being a dumb idea. Apparently it was a hit in eastern Europe.

Remember, pretty much every system has its fanclub, regardless of how flawed, underpowered, or limited a platform it is. So while I personally don't care for any of these machines, if you're mad at me for taking a pot shot at your favorite, do keep in mind that my favorite computer of all time is the VIC-20. You know, the one that most Commodore enthusiasts ignore for only having 5K of RAM having only 8 foreground colors, only 22 columns of screen resolution, and just not being a C64.

[electricpurrs]

the IBM PCjr is such a cute computer. like theyre just very aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. the platonic ideal of old computers. nicely shaped, chunky, a big square screen, that cute little rainbow logo. it just looks very polite

[gmlocg]

79.) Microsurgeon

Release: 1982 | GGF: Action, Arcade, Simulation | Developer(s): Imagic | Publisher(s): Imagic | Platform(s): Intellivision (1982), IBM PCjr (1984), PC Booter (1984), TI-99/4A (1984)

[boredtechnologist]

IBM's "Mineshaft" for the PC/PCjr computer