| | | Frontier Electronics Museum of Early Computers |
Commodore 64 is a home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM. Released in August 1982, it was a hybrid between a computer and a game console. You could programme in BASIC, or pick up the joystick and enjoy some of the best graphics of the day. Best of all, C64 worked on TV screen.
Commodore 64 was discontinued in 1993. Its sales are estimated at between 20 and 30 million units, making C64 one of the best-selling computers of all time.
Commodore 64 is 41centimetres wide and 21 centimetres deeps. Its stiffy drive is just a little bit smaller. | 
| Commodore VIC-20 was the first inexpensive colour computer available. Since it can only display 22 characters of text per line, its use for business applications is minimal, but people loved it for games - so much that it became the first computer ever to sell over one million units.
The VIC stands for Video Interface Chip, designed by Commodore for video game machines. Unfortunately, no one wanted it, so Commodore engineers designed the VIC-20 computer around it.
The VIC-20 was succeeded by the even more popular Commodore 64. | 
| Schneider 7640 Portable Computer
Germany.
Processor Intel 8286. RAM 640 KB Donated by Wentzel van Deventer | 
| Olivetti M24 Personal Computer
1984, Italy.
The Olivetti M24 was the first computer to be fully
compatible with the IBM PC and to offer more features
than original PC, for a cheaper price ! Donated by Erich Knoop (Infrastar) | 
| Olivetti Personal Computer
(model unknown) Donated by Erich Knoop (Infrastar) | 
| Olivetti M21 Personal Computer
Italy, 1983
Weighing at about fifteen kilograms of computing power, Olivetti M21 features 8MHz CPU and 640Kb of memory. The strange slots on the right hand side are floppy drives (enlarge the photo by clicking on it to see better).
The keyboard flips up to close the built-in 9" monitor, making this a truly portable device - provided you have the muscle power.
Dimensions: 40 x 32 x 10 cm
Donated by: Roberta Mocci (Millennium Solutions) | 
| XT Computer
Circa early 1980'ties
You could type letters on it.
You could copy your letters onto the pizza-sized floppy disc.
You could also play the Tetris game on it.
What else could possibly a savvy computer user need!
Two samples, donated by Howard Burr and Clifford Gordon. | 
| 386 CX66 Personal computer
This one is the direct ancestor of the personal computers most of us use today.
x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. The x86 architecture currently dominates the desktop computer, portable computer, and small server markets.
The x86 family gave us the 32-bit 386 chip in 1985. It was followed by the 486 in 1989. Starting with 1993, the Intel Pentium line took over.
More reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86 Donated by: Marc Cadbrook | 
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