[typing]
The 1980s.
The decade of the microcomputer explosion.
And although just about any home computer could have been seen
as somewhat unique for the time,
there were countless standout machines
designed to snatch up every morsel of this new market.
So, let's take a look at a bunch of computers that stand out for their weirdness,
in regards to overall look,
usability and specifications alike.
Starting with the Holborn 9100.
Introduced in 1981 in the Netherlands,
the Holborn 9000 series of computers
have some of the most unique case designs around,
with its monochrome monitor protruding from the top of the keyboard case
like an alien head.
Several models also featured a proprietary multi-user Holborn operating system
that could be navigated by touching a light pen to the screen,
as well as housing its processor, RAM,
and multiple 8-inch floppy drives in a massive box
in a convenient size of a small refrigerator.
The ACT Apricot Portable.
Not only does the Apricot have an appetizing name
and still looks sleek and stylish today,
but it was host to a number of standout features in 1984.
The detachable, slimline keyboard connected wirelessly,
its screen was the first 80-column, 25-line LCD of its type on a portable,
and it featured the brand-new double-sided 3½-inch disk drive
from Sony for removable storage.
And to top it off, there was a built-in microphone
with speech recognition software
allowing users to input and output information using a vocabulary
of up to 4,096 words.
Applied Technologies Computer-In-A-Book
From the company most famous for the MicroBee computer systems in Australia,
the Computer-In-A-Book is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
Except for the whole book part. Sort of.
This was actually just a MicroBee 64 from 1983,
but repackaged in a clever series of expandable "volumes"
meant to mimic the look of computer manuals of the day.
Volume 1 contained the main computer and a 3½-inch floppy drive,
Volume 2 would give you a secondary drive,
and so on – up to four different volumes.
But problems arose when people actually set up the computers in a bookshelf,
resulting in the power supply overheating and killing it.
The Coleco ADAM.
While Coleco was known for Cabbage Patch Kids and video game consoles alike,
they infamously dipped their toes in microcomputer waters
in 1983 with the ADAM.
But it was plagued with problems.
Such as, unless the printer was plugged in,
the ADAM wouldn't start,
since the computer's power supply was contained inside it.
Even worse, any tapes left inside or near its dual cassette drives
would be wiped clean every time you turned it on
due to an electromagnetic surge generated.
The ADAM ended up costing Coleco tens of millions of dollars
and they stopped making computers soon after.
The Unisys ICON.
Originally designed by the Canadian Educational Microprocessor Corporation,
the ICON was a workstation introduced in 1983.
Since they didn't feature any local storage,
up to 20 ICONs could address a central 10 MB server
known as the LexICON.
This allowed teachers and classrooms to share lessons and communicate with each other
by running the Unix-like QNX operating system it contained.
The ICON also had the ability to run a graphical user interface on top of QNX,
known as ICONLook,
which gave its huge built-in trackball and keyboard something useful to do.
The Seiko UC-2000.
In 1984, the term "smartwatch" was nowhere to be found,
but that didn't stop Seiko from debuting the UC-2000 Data Terminal Watch that year.
This stylish beast featured a 4-by-10 block dot matrix-style LCD display
and stored two whole kilobytes of data,
typed in using a QWERTY keyboard attachment.
And for more serious computing power,
you could attach it to the UC-2200 Docking Station,
providing a thermal printer, 4K of RAM,
and a 26K ROM via a plug-in Microsoft BASIC ROM pack.
And you could even play games and plug it into your desktop computer when you were done!
The Microwriter.
This one isn't exactly a computer, but it's kinda close,
and it's so strange I had to mention it.
The Microwriter is a word processing system from 1980,
co-designed by author and director Cy Enfield.
This housed an 8-bit CPU, 16K of RAM,
a liquid crystal display,
built-in software and had a keyboard
with only six keys.
But with the correct combination of key presses,
it was possible to enter every letter of the alphabet
along with numerals and punctuation marks
using only your right hand.
You could even plug in a monitor,
communicate with networks with an acoustic modem,
and attach a data set to it to save your work.
The IBM PCjr.
Probably the most well-known computer on this list,
but the IBM PCjr, nevertheless, is one strange little thing worth mentioning.
Not only because it proved to be one of IBM's biggest flops,
but because it remained the only IBM PC-compatible machine
to have used these cartridges for games and software.
But these carts didn't store enough information for many programs,
and expansion options for the machine were limited and a bit costly,
requiring users to install sidecars to the... side...
for anything from RAM
to parallel ports,
extending the computer horizontally,
to infinity and beyond.
The Access Computer.
Released in 1982 and re-released as the Actrix DS in '83,
this one of the earlier attempts to appeal to both CPM and IBM PC users
with a single portable computer.
Its all-in-one design crammed a Zilog Z80 processor,
an optional Intel 8088,
20MB hard disk, 256K RAM,
dual 5¼-inch floppy drives,
detachable keyboard, 9-inch monochrome monitor,
and even a built-in acoustic modem and 24-pin dot matrix printer on top.
Fully decked out, this weighed about 40 pounds,
and barely fit anyone's definition of portable, transportable, luggable–
It didn't matter. Nobody wanted it!
And finally, the Elwro 800.
Released in 1986 by order of the Polish Ministry of Education,
the Elwro 800 series of computers
were meant to be cheap Sinclair ZX Spectrum compatibles
appropriate for use in Poland's schools.
The idea itself is pretty standard for the time period
but aside from using a unique version of the CPM operating system,
known as CPJ,
the case design is really what sets this thing apart.
You see that wire on top of the case?
That's because this was originally a toy piano,
and that wire was meant to be folded upward
to hold sheet music.
And that's all for this episode
and if you enjoyed it, then thanks!
Perhaps you'd like to see some of my others.
I've talked about some super-strange computers
from the '90s and 2000s as well,
and you can click those here,
or stay tuned.
There's new videos every Monday and Friday here on LGR.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.