[farrelle25]

Home computers were definitely common-ish in Ireland in late 80s. (Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga). I'm from a small town in the West of Ireland and about 6 or 7 families got the new "Spectrum 48k" in 1985... By 1988-90 they were all over the place.. It was 1992 before we got an IBM PC 386 and that was a bit rarer alright... but Commodore and Amiga ruled for years..

[coldtea]

Depends on the definition of common-ish.

In the UK there were about 2.5m Amstrad's (of various models) sold, similar for Spectrum, Comomodore 64 less. Amiga's and Atari's weren't for sale until the tail end of the 80s (and even then, Amiga had sold just ~ 400K between 1988-1990). All together around looks like in in 5 households had a computer, and the distribution favored higher income ones - in working class areas much fewer would. Before 1987 even less.

[lostlogin]

I started doing the maths after reading your first two sentences, but you had already done it.

I make ‘80s computers in Ireland a bit rarer than you at about 1 in 9 households, however that means many kids at school would have a couple in their class with a computer, with the number growing as they progressed through school.

I’d spin the same data differently: not that uncommon and growing quickly.

[bruce511]

Depends what you're comparing it against though :) Today (including smart phones) you're talking about multiple computers per household, probably more computers in the house than there are people. So one per "40ish people" was (compared to now) "rare".

So, in my original post when I said "rare" - I meant "a few per class". In my 80's childhood there were maybe 2 or 3 people in the class who had a computer (of any kind) at home. The school had 2 computers (BBC Micro) for student access (for over 600 students.) Most were completely uninterested.

Bear in mind that the numbers in the UK and surrounds were likely higher than that because the UK was an epicentre of home-computer development. Sinclair, Acorn etc were all at their height so penetration in that market was likely a bit higher.

[lproven]

> an IBM PC 386

A what now?

Is this just shorthand for "a 386-based PC compatible"?

Because the IBM PC had an 8088, and the next model with a newer CPU, the first 286, was the IBM PC/AT.

There never was a PC-architecture 386 from IBM... They moved to the PS/2 range by then.

[coldtea]

AT and PS/2 never caught on names with the public. It was still just "PC" or "IBM PC compatible" even when talking more formally.

Regular people would only refer specificially to AT or PS/2 when buying motherboards or peripherals.

[lproven]

Yes, true, OK.

But still, I am curious. 386 PS/2s were expensive.

My first job had a Model 70-A21 as a demo box:

https://www.ardent-tool.com/qtechinfo/GJAN-43WJX8.html

First 3.5" hard disk I ever saw. Blazing speed for 1988. A 25MHZ 386! With secondary cache!

This thing was $10,500 for the base spec, if I remember rightly -- it's over 35 years ago -- and that excluded a keyboard, monitor and DOS.

In my 2nd year in that job I bought a 2nd hand Acorn Archimedes A310. 8MHz ARM 2, 1MB RAM, 20MB hard disk.

It was considerably quicker than that IBM. Like 4-8x the speed. And it was £800 used. With a screen, keyboard and RISC OS!

Probably £1500 new, so about one tenth of the price of a comparably-specified Model 70.

My point being... as someone said upthread, they didn't know anyone with a private Mac home computer. Yeah, well, a 386 PS/2 was even more expensive than a Mac.

[farrelle25]

Ah I knew I shouldn't have said 'IBM PC 386'...! :-O

It was an "Epson Equity 386SX" which - as you say - is my uninformed shorthand for 'a 386-based PC compatible' (actually maybe it was only 286-based anyway?!)

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/epson-equity-386sx-16...

ps: I was a mainframe PL/1 programmer at the time so plead ignorance on all things PC-based... (!)

[lproven]

Ah, yeah, fair dos.

I remember the Epson Equity range. I supported quite a lot of the original 8086 and 80286 ones. Cute little PCs, which was unusual back then -- most big name vendors went with big wide, or fat or tall, cases to look impressive for the money.

[coldtea]

>My point being... as someone said upthread, they didn't know anyone with a private Mac home computer. Yeah, well, a 386 PS/2 was even more expensive than a Mac.

Still within the reach of a PC-enthusiast early adopter upper middle class person, a doctor or lawyer doing well and such. The kind which now buy a Leica and lenses for $10K+.