Hello computer cooks. Well today I am a computer, or at least that's the title of this piece of work by photographer James Ball
Aka Docubite. That's what's on the menu today. Welcome to Retro Recipes
Now here on Retro Recipes
I usually like to share with you, hopefully fun retrocomputing projects of my own with a bit of a twist
Make sure you subscribe for more of those. But every now and then I like to mix it up and share something with you
That's just too good to resist. As was the case with James Ball
He's a photographer and art director and friend of mine from my home town of London
He was watching an Apple commercial where this question was posed
Now I think it's fair to say that as the decades have been turned by the hands of time, we've gone from these playful looking futuristic
Designs full of personality and character, seen here in the museum's where Docubyte shot the photos we're about to see, to...well
Yeah
So let's celebrate the visual character of retro computers and take a journey into a time that color forgot. As we answer the question
Well who better to answer that question, with a little help from James, than the computers themselves
Let's start at the beginning
1973 to be precise and Wang was a highly successful computer company of the 50s and it introduced the 2200 in
1973, making this the oldest machine in our series. It was small enough to fit on your desk and
Called a mini not a microcomputer, as it predated the introduction of micro processors by several years
It was a personal computer before PCs and Wang continued to be successful
until the late 1980's
Skipping forward to
1977, a lot of people's favorite memory, the Apple 2
I've still got a couple of these. And the Apple 2 is one of the first highly successful
mass-produced microcomputer products designed, of course, by Steve Wozniak - "Woz" - and Steve Jobs
It was touted as an extraordinary computer for ordinary people, like us!
Produced until 1993, in updated incarnations, the Apple 2 line established Apple as the computer company of the turn of the
1980s. Although some might argue the next company was the one that won the game
Isn't that beautiful. The Commodore Pet
Also came out in 1977 and the name derived from personal electronic transactor.
Now although you could trace back the naming of the device to the pet rock craze of
1975, its iconic angular exterior really point to its 2001 Space Odyssey
inspiration
Despite some complaints about the chiclet keyboard, the original pet
Definitely created what was going to be a very successful product line for Commodore
Well, let's stay in
1977 for a few moments longer. It's nice and cozy here after all and this cute little bug is the ADM 3a
Terminal, which was kind of an iconic design for the time
It became very popular with early personal computer builders because of its low cost
It was about $1,000. Now despite some drawbacks and being so-called a dumb terminal, because it couldn't actually do
Computational tasks and it could only display uppercase letters, as you can see here
The machine was still hugely successful and ADM purportedly stood for
American Dream Machine, I mean, American Dream Machine (American accent)
Wow look at that! This is the 1978 IBM
3278 and it was part of the 3270
series of IBM green screen terminals used to connect two larger mainframes
Now this computer predated the mouse so selection of the on-screen characters was assisted by an optional selector pen, hmm
Now something that didn't need a selector pen, was this beautiful thing, the Commodore Pet 200 from 1979
This was essentially an upgraded pet with improved memory and that beautiful wholly redesigned chassis
Those rounded corners really give it a space-age feel
And there's a reason that looks so good. Commodore actually enlisted the services of Porsche design
To help put the finishing touches to that detachable keyboard and monitor with a tilt and swivel option
Well what have we got here? This is the fantastically named Interdec Data Systems
Superbraaaaain! (funny voice)
This was an all-in-one commercial microcomputer first sold by Interdec in
1979, cost about two thousand dollars, and this machine was really known for its reliability and in it's 1981 advert
It stated, "just about the only service tool required is the common screwdriver" (funny voice)
Well, we've all been there
One of my favorites now from this series, this is the Holborn 6100 from 1981. It's a fascinating
Trumpet of a computer. It's definitely one of the most futuristic designs and it was designed by the Dutch industrial design studio Voss
Holborn themselves were based in the Netherlands as well. Hmm looking at this maybe Amsterdam
Now the company only made about 200 of these machines and each one cost
$10,000. The machine was a commercial failure and eventually forced Holborn to declare bankruptcy
Sad really, because I would have loved to have seen more of these periscope like computers in use
And
Now, bringing us bang up to date, well almost, from 1984, It's the Apple Macintosh
the iconic Mac
This was famously unveiled by Steve Jobs in 1984, who said of the machine, "It's insanely great"
You know, it was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface
Beautifully depicted here again by James in real life. This is finished in what became known as Apple beige
Now jobs famously agonized over every detail of this, believing it to be the gateway to the masses adopting home computers
For those Xelenials among us, born between the late 70s early 80s and defined as having an analogue past and a digital
Present... well, we probably jumped on the bandwagon a bit before then!