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PCjr 25th Anniversary article

The author says..

"Why some guy named Mike maintains a PCjr Web page is beyond me."

Well, it could be just a throw-away quip to try and be cute. Or he might mean it. I suspect the former.

The PC junior was unsuccessful commercially and was an IBM mistake. But given IBM's then dominance in the 16 bit business micro market, their venture into the home market with a compatible machine was an interesting move. There was also a lot of hype about it at the time.

Lessons were learned not least a crippled business computer did not equate to a good home computer, regardess of compatibility.

The computer has historical value and it's memory should be preserved.

Tez
 
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I wonder if it had been a better move if IBM had approached some smaller manufacturer to make a cheaper home computer that natively or with some add-ons could be made partly IBM PC compatible. I understand if that would've been against IBM's policies but in practise may have worked out better. Perhaps some Japanese company even, like NEC.
 
It was a failure, but without it we would not have had the Tandy 1000 and all it's progeny.
 
Well, I mean, I never had to use the system as a primary computer but I thought it was a really neat system. Given expensive as hell (atleast the setup a store gave me for free in the late 90's ran $5000 with the stuff they had with it).

But I mean, 1983 wireless keyboard? That's awesome lol. Given as I quickly found it was cool, but programming basic from across my bedroom was hit and miss since I couldn't actually see the (12"?) monitor or read what I was typing from that distance of 12'. I guess gaming was ok from that distance though.
 
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