The American equivalent of the BBC Micro was very much the Apple II. Both based on the 6502, both dominated the market of ‘first computers purchased en masse by schools’ in the 1980s in their respective countries.
I always get the impression though that while the UK and European home computer era continued from a diverse eight-bit era of C64s, Spectrums, Amstrads and BBCs to the sixteen-bit era of Amigas and Atari STs, before the PC became dominant, in the US the early eight-bit home machines gave way much earlier to consoles - the NES at first, then the SNES and Megadrive.
At the time the Archimedes blew the nascent PC and every other machine out of the water, and yet couldn't get a toe-hold in the US market for reasons I've never quite understood. At the same point MS Windows looked shoddy at best in comparison to RiscOS.
There's a very important distinction to be made between the Beeb and the Apple II (or most other 8 bit micros).
The Beeb was a very well engineered machine, including the BASIC (which allowed in-line assembly and also allowed its functions to be called from assembly, ie other programs).
> in the US the early eight-bit home machines gave way much earlier to consoles
That’s my understanding as well. In the US the NES was huge in the late 80s, but in the UK home computers were dominant. The NES never sold well in the UK.
The 16-bit consoles did later on, though. So did the 8-bit Sega Master System, but not until the early 90s - it wasn’t a predecessor to the 16-bit machines, but a budget-friendly contemporary.
The Amiga was more 2nd gen. I think the Micro equivalent was more like an Apple I/II. TRS-80/Tandy Color, or Vic-20/C64. The Amiga was Motorola 68000 based and at a clockspeed that really outran those zlog and 6502 based early devices.
The Amiga was a pretty impressive device with an OS that was fairly advanced. You could probably use it still today for word processing and sound design and not feel like you're missing much. The OS looks a lot like one of those super low-resource linux DE's.
The Sinclair QL was a 68k machine, not an 8-bit (and famously what Linus Torvalds had before he got a 386 based PC).
Edit: 8-bit data bus though, which I didn't know until reading up on the Motorola 68008 just now! Trust Uncle Clive to cheap-out as usual...
I cut my teeth on a ZX81 and even had a Spectrum +3 later on - that was the last gasp of the 8-bit Z80 Sinclair line, although the IP was owned by Amstrad by then.
The BBCs were niche products in Britain where they were mostly used in education. They were too expensive so parents bought Sinclair Spectrums and Commodore 64s. Even the cheap BBC Model B, the Electron, was a poor seller.
We had an Electron. It was a fun little machine, that you could expand to a fun big machine. Originally 32kB RAM and 32kB ROM, ours eventually ended up with 224kB ROM due to all the expansions you could hook on the back of that thing. Didn't really help its stability, though.
jameshart|6 months ago
I always get the impression though that while the UK and European home computer era continued from a diverse eight-bit era of C64s, Spectrums, Amstrads and BBCs to the sixteen-bit era of Amigas and Atari STs, before the PC became dominant, in the US the early eight-bit home machines gave way much earlier to consoles - the NES at first, then the SNES and Megadrive.
DrBazza|6 months ago
At the time the Archimedes blew the nascent PC and every other machine out of the water, and yet couldn't get a toe-hold in the US market for reasons I've never quite understood. At the same point MS Windows looked shoddy at best in comparison to RiscOS.
forinti|6 months ago
The Beeb was a very well engineered machine, including the BASIC (which allowed in-line assembly and also allowed its functions to be called from assembly, ie other programs).
pansa2|6 months ago
That’s my understanding as well. In the US the NES was huge in the late 80s, but in the UK home computers were dominant. The NES never sold well in the UK.
The 16-bit consoles did later on, though. So did the 8-bit Sega Master System, but not until the early 90s - it wasn’t a predecessor to the 16-bit machines, but a budget-friendly contemporary.
Lio|6 months ago
The Archimedes was powered by a 32-bit ARM 2 and it was awesome. :D
pavlov|6 months ago
The Apple II would be an example of the opposite.
UncleSlacky|6 months ago
zoeysmithe|6 months ago
The Amiga was a pretty impressive device with an OS that was fairly advanced. You could probably use it still today for word processing and sound design and not feel like you're missing much. The OS looks a lot like one of those super low-resource linux DE's.
DrBazza|6 months ago
The BBC Micro was 8 bit and a 6502 chip, that era had at least the following:
BBC Atom, Micro, Electron, Master
Commodore Pet, Vic32, Commodore 64
Atari 400/800 XL
Tandy TRS80
Oric Atmos
Sinclair ZX80, 81, Spectrum, QL
Amstrad CPC 464
Dragon 32/64
MSX machines
dcminter|6 months ago
Edit: 8-bit data bus though, which I didn't know until reading up on the Motorola 68008 just now! Trust Uncle Clive to cheap-out as usual...
I cut my teeth on a ZX81 and even had a Spectrum +3 later on - that was the last gasp of the 8-bit Z80 Sinclair line, although the IP was owned by Amstrad by then.
lproven|6 months ago
You miscategorize most of the lines in this list.
> Commodore Amiga and Atari ST were 16-bit 68000 chips.
And the Mac which outsold both in the long run.
You missed:
Sinclair QL -- also a MC 680x0.
> The BBC Micro was 8 bit and a 6502 chip, that era had at least the following:
> BBC Atom, Micro, Electron, Master
> Commodore Pet, Vic32, Commodore 64
> Atari 400/800 XL
All 6502, yes. But you missed:
> Oric Atmos
Then you do not have a category for Zilog kit.
Powered by the Z80:
> Tandy TRS80
> Sinclair ZX80, 81, Spectrum, QL
Not the QL, no.
> Amstrad CPC 464
> MSX machines
Then another error. This line:
> Dragon 32/64
Is neither 6502 nor Z80. It is a Motorola 6809, along with 1 model of TRS-80.
Given this confusion I am not sure what you were trying to say.
sys_64738|6 months ago
mcv|6 months ago