Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

Apple wasn't visible at all in Europe during those days, Atari, Amiga and IBM PC ruled this side of the Atlantic.

Now had Compaq not been so lucky, then the PCs might have indeed gone nowhere.

Certainly in the UK (special case?), that's not the case . We certainly had Apple ][s at school and 6th form in the UK as the main machines - later replaced by BBC model Bs and back then there were summer camps doing computing for enthusiastic youngsters. Apple was again the computer of choice in the early days, to be replaced later by the ZX Spectrum.

Not sure I agree. Just my anecdotal data of course, but I don't remember seeing an Apple II in UK schools in the 80s, but definitely BBC Micro/Master and a few Archimedes later. This was in 2-3 North West state schools, so there might have been regional differences.

Edit - oh yes, and about the ZX Spectrum... I can't imagine anyone willingly changing from something else to that rubber keyboard! Yuck.

> oh yes, and about the ZX Spectrum... I can't imagine anyone willingly changing from something else to that rubber keyboard! Yuck.

The ZX Spectrum had tons of games (many of them quite creative, many weird), all kinds of software (limitied, of course, but even a Lisp) and several magazines dedicated to it. Many of my friends owned one, so it was much more fun than owning a more obscure computer, no matter how much better its keyboard was. Remember, there was no internet.

I still have nostalgic conversations with friends from that time about how magic the ZX Spectrum world was.

Of course this is always going to be anecdotal, but I never saw them in the north-east in the 80s either. The predecessor to the BBC Micro that I remember was the RML 380Z. I was messing with computers at school and elsewhere throughout the 80s, and to this day I've never actually seen a working Apple II.

I do remember reading about the Lisa and thinking it looked amazing.

Likewise here too. In fact all through the 80s and 90s I only knew one place that owned an Apple computer. Everyone else was running BBC / Acorn, Sinclair, Amstrad, Commodore 64, Atari, Amiga, Dragon, and, much later, IBM-compatible PCs.

For reference: south east of England.

Our school had an Apple II in 1982 but they were quite expensive, so people mostly got Sinclair machines or Commodore 64s for home use. When I went to 6th form they had a few BBCs and an old Commodore PET. I don't the Apple IIs were common, but they were certainly around.

Hmmm, this would have been before the BBC launch. This was a North London comp which received its first computer, an Apple II the month I finished my GCEs, so that would have been summer 81. When I went to a separate 6th Form college they also had Apple IIs with BBC Bs following soon after.

The BBC Micro didn't really get into mass production until 1982.

Again anecdotal, but my experience was that state schools had BBC Micros but private schools and many technology-focused colleges had AppleIIs. Apples were very expensive. I remember helping out at a technology college night class where people were being taught Logo programming (and later Pascal). It was the first time I'd seen more than one ApppleII in a room at a time (this class had a doze or so, two people to machine).

I went to a private school (1986-89) and we had nothing but BBC Micros. Don't think I saw an Apple until well into my job career (~2000ish).

I could have typed that better for sure. I had meant to say that Apples were not common anywhere in the UK but the places I had seen some were in tech colleges and private schools which it seems would fit with your experience too.

The 380Z was the overall 'king of the hill' pre-BBC, yes, some schools had Apple II's, some even IIe's but everywhere had at least one 380Z.

Had the 'PC' not won, I suspect some of the dos compatibles that the UK produced would have been more popular - specifically, Apricots were doing fairly well with the F1 and XEN in the 83-87 era where the PC hadn't quite dominated yet.

My UK knowledge from those days was thanks to Crash, Your Sinclair, BBC Micro, Input Magazine and Computer Shopper, so I might be bit biased in regards to any sort of Apple's widespread adoption.

Apple ][ was very popular in the UK for Business - it never took hold in educational markets like it did in the USA as it was to expensive.

Really? Throughout the 80s, it was all Sinclairs, Commodores and Amstrads (certainly in the home) and even before the ZX Spectrum was the ZX81 which at £100 (or thereabouts) was the first home computer of choice for many, many people. I knew a number of people with CBM VIC-20s, a handful of people with Acorn Electrons.

Of course these were after the Apple 2 so maybe you're correct but I don't think even I saw my first Apple computer until 1989, and that wasn't even in the UK (I emigrated to the US for a short while that year).

My secondary school had a bunch of Research Machines, until they were replaced by BBC micros.

>Apple wasn't visible at all in Europe during those days, Atari, Amiga and IBM PC ruled this side of the Atlantic.

If you mean early eighties, yes. If you mean the whole of eighties, I'd say no. I remember lots of businesses with Macs in the late eighties/early nineties, especially for print businesses.

The first time I saw anyone using a Mac live, actually an LC, instead of having to drive down to Lisbon or Porto to the see the only importer in the contry was in 1994.

Around here print business were using Amigas and Ataris.

I heard Apple was popular in Switzerland.

Might be, but in the Iberian Penisula, UK and Germany, the countries I can speak about during those days, it was hardly seen around.

Yep, I remember (Spain) Amstrads, Amigas, Spectrums, all sort of PCs and compatibles, and an Atari and MSX or two.

Apple was visible in the UK during that time.

I used Apple ][s and had a demo of the Lisa when it was being launched.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com