Shipments and manufacturer market share of personal computers in the USA in 1982

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secondhandoak@reddit

Will you show me your Wang if I show you mine?

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Foreign-Attorney-147@reddit

These numbers are fascinating! I would not have guessed that 1-2 in education in 1982 were Commodore and Atari.

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Brave_Assumption6@reddit (OP)

My guess would be that maybe 3 years after this there would be little Atari representation in education right?

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I don't think the schools that bought Ataris got rid of them, but I also doubt schools that waited until 1983 to start buying computers were buying TI or Atari. In 1983, the C-64 was out and in full production, and the Apple IIe and IBM PCjr came out that year too. And then in 1984 the Tandy 1000 came out.

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John_from_ne_il@reddit

It took a while for C-64 adoption though, since it needed a whole new software library, unlike Apple or Atari. It would be interesting to see 1982/1983 figures together. In 1982, Atari had only the 400/800/1200xl. But they were making big pushes into education with programming languages. PILOT/Super PILOT was being taught at their summer camps. Also, at some point, MECC pivoted from Apple ][ exclusive support to adding Atari, and a number of their programs were ported (this all ended with the 84 sale, of course). AtariLab and the Atari Learning Systems software became a thing (more or less replacing the original Educational System tapes) sometime in 1983. And 1983 saw the releases of the 600XL and 800XL, which finally replaced the 1979 models.

However, the schools in my home district stuck with their Apple ][ family, going ][ to plus to ][e and eventually to 2gs (though those were beyond this time frame). In fact, I'm not really aware of any schools in northeastern Illinois doing anything other than Apples. A few went Apple to Mac, but most went Apple to PC by the 1990s. Now everybody's on iPads and Chromebooks, but that's a different story altogether. Were there other 8-bit platforms out there in school use? I'm sure there were, I just didn't see them, even when I visited places such as what was, at that time, Wheaton-Warrenville Middle School.

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TMWNN@reddit

It took a while for C-64 adoption though, since it needed a whole new software library, unlike Apple or Atari.

I presume PET education software developers were able to rapidly port software to C64, which would help.

I agree that Atari was pushing hard in the education field; in addition to what you mentioned, I would add Atari Logo. I wonder if it was a replacement within the company for its initial marketing of the 8-bit line as a general-purpose computer even suitable for business, as seen in the aborted Atari Accountant series.

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John_from_ne_il@reddit

Obviously the devs knew what they were doing, as you pointed out with documentation. But Apple and Atari both had degrees of backwards compatibility, which PET to VIC to C64 didn't.

And I think dropping the Accounting packages had more to do with the failures of the 815 dual drive, since they still released the numeric keypad add-on. But yes, it left a hole in the product lineup.

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TMWNN@reddit

Look at IBM taking the top slot in "Business and Professional use" so quickly after its August 1981 announcement and late 1981 availability. IBM could not meet demand and would not be able to do so until about 1984.

I'm amazed that Commodore has 14% of the same market, larger than Apple's. My understanding is that by this time Commodore had completely ceded the US market outside home and education.

Tandy would probably have had 50% of this market in 1978.

Commodore focusing on the home is quite understandable, looking at this data. The VIC-20 in 1980 was a remarkable, but understandable, pivot for a company that had tried to compete head-on against Apple and TRS-80 (and consistently lost) for three years. Everyone in the US industry from 1980 to about 1983 thought that "the Japanese are coming" to computers but ony Tramiel did something about it, succeeding spectacularly.

Look at TI's solid share of the home market in 1982. I'm pretty sure TI's share in 1983 would have only grown. TI did not exit the market in November 1983 because the 99/4A failed to sell; on the contrary, it probably had the single largest installed base of any home computer. TI just couldn't make a profit against Commodore's ruthless cost-cutting.

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arnstarr@reddit

It didn't help TI (and Tandy) that they were gatekeepers to their eco-systems. Commdore and Atari were the opposite and welcomed 3rd party developers.

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John_from_ne_il@reddit

Atari didn't at first. It took some pressure to get documentation out of the company for potential devs.

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TMWNN@reddit

Correct. This was no doubt Atari's console-driven perspective at work here, also seen in the exodus of developers who founded Activision.

Atari was never as hostile to developers as TI, and later released De Re Atari, but the initial absence of documentation no doubt hurt the 8-bit line's potential for dethroning Apple II as the "best video game computer". Commodore made many mistakes, but one thing it got right was releasing the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide immediately.

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TMWNN@reddit

It didn't help TI (and Tandy) that they were gatekeepers to their eco-systems.

Correct. But TI's 99/4A business model was based on selling TI software and accessories. If TI could have sold enough of the latter, it could get away with selling 99/4As with no profit or even a loss. The strategy did not work, because people did not want to pay $49 for software for a $99 computer.

By late 1983 Commodore was able to sell VIC-20s for $99 retail and make a profit. TI could not.

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GG-McGroggy@reddit

It only to a few hundred million to figure that out 😉

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TMWNN@reddit

When TI discontinued the 99/4A, the stock went up because the rest of the company was doing well, and investors were so relieved that it had abandoned the hopeless project!

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GG-McGroggy@reddit

Thanks to their mistakes, lots of people got to experience a decent, if flawed, Home Computer for the first time...at a great price. It's a fun machine.

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JDP87@reddit

23% home use sales were Sinclair??

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dwhite21787@reddit

I had one! And I had a friend with an Apple, a friend with a Commodore, and we had IBMs at school, so we got to play the field

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TMWNN@reddit

Yes. Timex was already manufacturing the Sinclair ZX81 in Britain, so Timex marketing the computer in the US as the Timex/Sinclair 1000 was a logical next step. $99 for a computer was very appealing.

(When the price hit $50, Commodore ran a promotion offering $100 credit on a C64 for any computer trade-in. People bought TS1000s to immediately trade them in. I've heard that Commodore used them as doorstops at headquarters.)

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ComputerSong@reddit

This would have been before the c64 came out.

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arnstarr@reddit

The note at the bottom says the data was published in 1983 so the entire calendar year of 1982 would be included in the analysis. The Vic-20 and C64 would have been good sellers in 1982.

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Brave_Assumption6@reddit (OP)

Shipments began in August apparently (and theoretically it wasn't fully available everywhere until some time later?). Considering most of the year there was no C64 on the market maybe it didn't play much in the total year figures.

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nonexistentnight@reddit

This would be a way better data graphic if it used the same color for the same company across all graphs.