retrocomputing

4097 readers

3 users here now

Discussions on vintage and retrocomputing

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

SDF@lemmy.sdf.org

cognitivegears@lemmy.sdf.org

Penkster@lemmy.sdf.org

Office workstations (lemmy.ml)

submitted 9 months ago by amoroso@lemmy.ml to c/retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Up to the 1990s there were workstations designed for software development (Lisp/Smalltalk Machines by various vendors), graphics and CAD (Apollo, SGI), and general purpose systems (Sun, HP).

Was Xerox Star the only office workstation?

Were there other dedicated workstations (not high-end PCs or Macs) designed for office and business tasks? Of course there were word processing machines. But I'm not sure they qualify as they didn't play in the same league as the Star and were much less versatile.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] jadero@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think something like the Commodore PET might qualify. Back in the day, I saw it used for everything from cash registers to accountants' workstations, but rarely for anything else.

I think that the original IBM PC was conceived and marketed as a business machine and only grew beyond that because of Microsoft's deep commitment to it as a platform and IBM's uncharacteristicly open specifications and design.

If not for that combination, the PC might never have left the office and most of us would have stuck with the companies who were actually breaking new ground, Apple and Commodore.

[–] amoroso@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

An interesting view. But the PET was definitely lower specced than the later 16/32-bit machines usually regarded as workstations.