me computer market, scores of models were produced, usually as individual design projects with little or no thought given to compatibility between different manufacturers or even within product lines of the same manufacturer.Except for the Japanese MSX standard, the concept of a computer platform was still forming, with most companies considering rudimentary BASIC language and disk format compatibility sufficient to claim a model as "compatible". Things were different in the business world, where cost-conscious small business owners had been using CP/M running on Z80 based computers from Osborne, Kaypro, Morrow Designs and a host of other manufacturers. For many of these businesses, the development of the microcomputer made computing and business software affordable where they had not been before.
Introduced in August 1981, the IBM Personal Computer would eventually supplant CP/M as the standard platform used in business. This was largely due to the IBM name and the system's 16 bit open architecture, which expanded maximum memory tenfold, and also encouraged production of third-party clones. In the late 1970s, the 6502-based Apple II series had carved out a niche for itself in business, thanks to the industry's first killer app, VisiCalc, released in 1979. However the Apple II would quickly be displaced for office use by IBM PC compatibles running Lotus 1-2-3.Apple Computer's 1980 Apple III was underwhelming, and although the 1984 release of the Apple Macintosh introduced the modern GUI to the market, it wasn't common until IBM-compatible computers adopted it. Throughout the 1980s, businesses large and small adopted the PC platform, leading, by the end of the decade, to sub-US$1000 IBM PC XT-class white box machines, usually built in Asia and sold by US companies like PCs Limited.
In 1980 Wayne Green, the publisher of Kilobaud Microcomputing , recommended that companies avoid the term "home computer" in their advertising as "I feel is self-limiting for sales ... I prefer the term "microcomputers" since it doesn't limit the uses of the equipment in the imagination of the prospective customers".With the exception of Tandy, most computer companies – even those with a majority of sales to home users – agreed, avoiding the term "home computer" because of its association with the image of, as Compute! wrote, "a low-powered, low-end machine primarily suited for playing games". Apple consistently avoided stating that it was a home-computer company, and described the IIc as "a serious computer for the serious home user" despite competing against IBM's PCjr home computer. John Sculley denied that his company sold home computers; rather, he said, Apple sold "computers for use in the home". In 1990 the company reportedly refused to support joysticks on its low-cost Macintosh LC and IIsi computers to prevent customers from considering them as "game machines".
Although the Apple II and Atari computers are functionally similar, Atari's home-oriented marketing resulted in a game-heavy library with much less business software.By the late 1980s, many mass merchants sold video game consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System, but no longer sold home computers. Toward the end of the 1980s, clones also became popular with non-corporate customers. Inexpensive, highly compatible clones succeeded where the PCjr had failed. Replacing the hobbyists who had made up the majority of the home computer market were, as Compute! described them, "people who want to take work home from the office now and then, play a game now and then, learn more about computers, and help educate their children". By 1986 industry experts predicted an "MS-DOS Christmas", and the magazine stated that clones threatened Commodore, Atari, and Apple's domination of the home-computer market.
The declining cost of IBM compatibles on the one hand, and the greatly increased graphics, sound, and storage abilities of fourth generation video game consoles such as the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System on the other, combined to cause the market segment for home co