dicted application. Morning coffee would be brewed automatically under computer control. The same household computer would control the home's lighting and temperature. Robots would take the garbage out, and be programmed to perform new tasks via the home computer. Electronics were expensive, so it was generally assumed that each home would have only one computer for the entire family to use. Home control would be performed in a multitasking time-sharing arrangement, with interfaces to the various devices it was expected to control.
|“||As an industry we haven't found any compelling reason to buy a computer for the home.||”|
|— Tandy executive Steve Leininger,July 1984|
|“||When the computer revolution was unofficially announced in the early 1980s, all indications were that it would change the world. Experts predicted that within five years, every household would have a computer. Dad would run his business on it. Mom would store her recipes on it. The kids would do their homework on it. Today only 15% of American homes have a computer – and the other 85% don't seem the least bit interested. There is a general feeling that the home computer was a fad and that there is really no practical purpose for a computer in the home.||”|
|— Commodore Magazine,September 1987|
All this was predicted to be commonplace by the end of the 1980s, but by 1987 Dan Gutman wrote that the predicted revolution was "in shambles", with only 15% of American homes owning a computer.Virtually every aspect that was foreseen would be delayed to later years or would be entirely surpassed by later technological developments. The home computers of the early 1980s could not multitask, which meant that using one as a home automation or entertainment appliance would require it be kept powered on at all times and dedicated exclusively for this use. Even if the computers could be used for multiple purposes simultaneously as today, other technical limitations predominated; memory capacities were too small to hold entire encyclopedias or databases of financial records; floppy disk-based storage was inadequate in both capacity and speed for multimedia work; and the home computers' graphics chips could only display blocky, unrealistic images and blurry, jagged text that would be difficult to read a newspaper from. Although CD-ROM technology was introduced in 1985 with much promise for its future use, the drives were prohibitively expensive and only interfaced with IBM PCs and compatibles.
The Boston Phoenix stated in 1983 that "people are catching on to the fact that 'applications' like balancing your checkbook and filing kitchen recipes are actually faster and easier to do with a pocket calculator and a box of index cards".inCider observed that "companies cannot live by dilettantes alone". Gutman wrote that when the first computer boom ended in 1984, "Suddenly, everybody was saying that the home computer was a fad, just another hula hoop". Robert Lydon, publisher of Personal Computing, stated in 1985 that the home market "never really existed. It was a fad. Just about everyone who was going to buy a computer for their home has done it", and predicted that Apple would cease to exist within two years.
A backlash set in; computer users were "geeks", "nerds" or worse, "hackers". The North American video game crash of 1983 soured many on home computer technology as users saw large investments in 'the technology of the future' turn into dead-ends when manufacturers pulled out of the market or went out of business. The computers that were bought for use in the family room were either forgotten in closets or relegated to basements and children's bedrooms to be used exclusively for games and the occasional book report. Home computers of the 1980s have been called "a technology in search of a use".In 1984 Tandy executive Steve Leininger, designer of the TRS-80 Model I, admitted that "As an industry we haven't found any compelling reason to buy a computer for the home" other than for word processing. A 1985 study found that, during a typical week, 40% of adult computer owner