Sinclair QL Motorola 68008 microdrives ICL One Per Desk Linus Torvalds Linux ZX Spectrum IBM
The Sinclair QL was released in 1984. This machine was aimed at the serious home user and professional markets. It was a departure from the architecture of the ZX Spectrum series, using a Motorola 68008 processor and was not compatible with its predecessor. The QL was particularly distinctive due to an unusual choice of storage device. It was shipped with two integrated microdrives, a continuous loop tape system intended to have performance sitting somewhere between disk and cassette but at a lower price than a disk drive. The QL was not a commercial success, in part due to issues with reliability but also the ascent of the IBM PC in business with which it was not compatible. Production had been discontinued by 1985. The same technology was subsequently re-used in the ICL One Per Desk integrated telephone/computer device. The QL achieved some note due to Linus Torvalds crediting it with being the machine on which he became practiced at programming prior to developing Linux, in part due to the limited software support. 
