The golden age of the P.C.

Commodore PET From the Museum Collection

From 1978 to 1983, the personal computer marketplace was more competitive than it ever would be again, offering consumers a vast choice of P.C.s.

Home computers ranged in price from around $100 to $1,500 and up, and boasted features from new graphical capabilities to disk drives, modems to printers. The popularity of this new consumer item, the Personal Computer, meant they were soon being sold in department stores and malls.

More and more companies brought out their own computers to try and catch on to this new market. The Radio Shack Color Computer, the Commodore PET and later VIC-20, and Atari's 400 and 800 all provided stiff competition for the Apple II.