r MIDI equipment for the production of music.
Clock rates on the 68000-based systems were approximately 8 MHz with RAM capacities of 256 KB (for the base Amiga 1000 ) up to 1024 KB (1 megabyte, a milestone, first seen on the Atari 1040ST). These systems used 3.5" floppy disks from the beginning but 5.25" drives were made available to facilitate data exchange with IBM PC compatibles. The Amiga and ST both had GUIs with windowing technology. These were inspired by the Apple Macintosh, but at a list price of US$2495 (equivalent to $5,800in 2018), the Macintosh itself was too expensive for most households. The Commodore Amiga in particular had true multitasking capability and unlike all other low-cost computers of the era could run multiple applications in their own windows.
MSX was a standard for a home computing architecture that was intended and hoped to become a universal platform for home computing. It was conceived, engineered and marketed by Microsoft Japan with ASCII Corporation.Computers conforming to the MSX standard were produced by most all major Japanese electronics manufacturers, as well as two Korean ones and several others in Europe and South America. Some 5 million units are known to have been sold in Japan alone. They sold in smaller numbers throughout the world. Due to the "price wars" being waged in the USA home computer market during the 1983-85 period, MSX computers were never marketed to any great extent in the USA. Eventually more advanced mainstream home computers and game consoles obsoleted the MSX machines.
The MSX computers were built around the Zilog Z80 8-bit processor, assisted with dedicated video graphics and audio coprocessors supplied by Intel, Texas Instruments, and General Instrument. MSX computers received a great deal of software support from the traditional Japanese publishers of game software, but never garnered such support from publishers of productivity applications. Microsoft did, however, produce a special version of the BASIC programming language that ran under MSX.
After the first wave of game consoles and computers landed in American homes, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began receiving complaints of electromagnetic interference to television reception. By 1979 the FCC demanded that home computer makers submit samples for radio frequency interference testing. It was found that "first generation" home computers emitted too much radio frequency noise for household use. The Atari 400 and 800 were designed with heavy RF shielding to meet the new requirements. Between 1980 and 1982 regulations governing RF emittance from home computers were phased in.Some companies appealed to the FCC to waive the requirements for home computers, while others (with compliant designs) objected to the waiver. Eventually techniques to suppress interference became standardized.
In 1977, referring to computers used in home automation at the dawn of the home computer era, Digital Equipment Corporation CEO Ken Olsen is quoted as saying "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."Despite Olsen's warning, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, from about 1977 to 1983, it was widely predicted that computers would soon revolutionize many aspects of home and family life as they had business practices in the previous decades. Mothers would keep their recipe catalog in "kitchen computer" databases and turn to a medical database for help with child care, fathers would use the family's computer to manage family finances and track automobile maintenance. Children would use online encyclopedias for school work and would be avid video gamers. The computer would even be tasked with babysitting younger children. Home automation would bring about the intelligent home of the 1980s. Using Videotex, NAPLPS or some sort of vaguely conceptualized computer technology, television would gain interactivity. It would be possible to do the week's grocery shopping through the television. The "personalized newspaper" (to be displayed on the television screen) was another commonly pre