Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthHelmet86
The computers you listed were sold as set units, no changes made to them. They were in fact sold by weight if you like. (Well not all the time but mostly at least they were just sold as is and you couldn't get things changed). If you had an Atari 2600...that's what you had. Even my average computer allowed me to pick options for every part that came in it, upgrades and degrades and different options that you just wouldn't have got back then.
|
I think its the current PCs that are sold by weight. Faceless exchangable things.
I admit, exchangable also has a good side. The possibility to expand them without problems or compatibility issues is definitely a plus.
The fact that they are exchangable is not new. There were models that could be upgrades for most of the families (Atari Mega ST and Amiga 1000 and 2000 also Apple II), just to name a few.
Video compression could only be done in hardware at that time, and also not as sophisticated as today. Things like video could not be handled uncompressed at all (because of the data rate of data bus and disks and also capacity).
It is definitely a plus that current computers can handle this easier - and not to forget much cheaper (I spent much more for the computers back then, not to talk about how expensive e.g. the video hardware was at that time).
However, the progress was not as big as I expected. In my eyes the (software) industry failed to convert the full increase in computing power into better functionality and usability.
I still can't believe that most of my new computers need much longer to boot up than some home computers decades ago.