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Re: World-wide 8-bit computer sales (all-time)?
Bo Zimmerman wrote:
Actually, the crash was the following year, 1984.
TI pulled the 99/4a because they were losing huge wads of cash on the
machine, selling it far below it's value, hoping to make it all back on
the PE BOX and the various things to stuff into it. Then, the straw that
broke the camel's back: The Coleco ADAM was announced in the spring of
1983. $600 for a 64K (80K with video RAM - compare the 99/4a which ONLY
had the 16K of video RAM!), a fast reliable random access tape system,
and a letter quality daisy wheel printer with included word processing
software. TI couldn't compete. Coleco hoped that no one could. But
Coleco released it before the engineers were finished making the thing
work reliably. Death to two systems.
Roy
The mere annoucement of the Coleco ADAM caused the death of TI (and others no
doubt) in 1984.
No, I guess you don't read very well.
1. It was 1983, not 1984 that the Coleco was announced, and the TI died.
2. TI was losing millions already. The Coleco announcement was merely
the "final straw", there was no way TI could put together a bundle like
Coleco did at anywhere near $600 and still make money.
Hmm.. well, we Commodore users surely thank God daily for Coleco's mercy on us
during that time.
Consumer's Reports did a comparison of the Coleco, C-64, TRS-80 CoCo and
Atari 600XL.
The Atari won.
But the reason they did the comparison was because of the Coleco bundle.
The C-64 couldn't touch the Coleco, because at the price they had only a
VERY poor DMP, and their infamous tape system.
And it wasn't Coleco's "mercy", it was the toy company's incompetence in
selling such a complex, expensive machine. By the time the bugs were
worked out, no one would touch the machine. That, and the video
game/home computer shake out caused Coleco to pull the machine in
January 1985, less than 18 months after going on the market.
Roy
- Bo
(Peddle is God, and Tramiel is his propheteer)
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