 II family (first introduced in 1977), the Atari 400/800 (1979) along with its follow up models the 800XL and 130XE, and the Commodore VIC-20 (1980) and the Commodore 64 (1982). The VIC was the first computer of any type to sell over one million units, and the 64 is still the highest-selling single model of personal computer ever, with over 17 million produced before production stopped in 1994 – a 12-year run with only minor changes. At one point in 1983 Commodore was selling as many 64s as the rest of the industry's computers combined.
The British market was different, as relatively high prices and lower disposable incomes reduced the appeal of most American products. New Scientist stated in 1977 that "the price of an American kit in dollars rapidly translates into the same figure in pounds sterling by the time it has reached the shores of Britain".The Commodore 64 was also popular, but a BYTE columnist stated in 1985:
It's not easy for a U.K. citizen to write about home computers for an American magazine. We use the term to refer to an altogether different object on our side of the Atlantic.
In the U.S.A., an Apple II is a home computer; the IBM PC in its smaller configurations is a home computer; the Macintosh is a home computer. Home computers use floppy disks for mass storage and perform useful functions like word processing and income tax preparation as well as playing games.
In the U.K., those computers would be considered rather expensive as business computers, let alone for home use. Home computers typically cost less than £200 (about $250) and use cassette tape recorders for mass storage. We have various manufacturers of our own, some unheard of in the U.S.A. ... Even when we do have machines in common (the Commodore 64), I suspect that the vast majority of U.S. users buy the disk drive, while the majority of U.K. users have only the cassette deck.
Many of the British-made systems like Sinclair's ZX81 and Spectrum, and later the Amstrad/Schneider CPC were much more widely used in Europe than US systems. A few low-cost British Sinclair models were sold in the US by Timex Corporation as the Timex Sinclair 1000 and the ill-fated Timex Sinclair 2068, but neither established a strong following. The only transatlantic success was the Commodore 64, which competed favorably price-wise with the British systems, and was the most popular system in Europe as in the USA.
Until the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, computers such as the Apple II and TRS 80 also found considerable use in office work.In 1983 IBM introduced the PCjr in an attempt to continue their business computer success in the home computer market, but incompatibilities between it and the standard PC kept users away. Assisted by a large public domain software library and promotional offers from Commodore, the PET had a sizable presence in the North American education market until that segment was largely ceded to the Apple II as Commodore focused on the C-64's success in the mass retail market.
Three microcomputers were the prototypes for what would later become the home computer market segment; but when introduced they sold as much to hobbyists and small businesses as to the home.
The following computers also introduced significant advancements to the home computer segment:
The Aster CT-80, an early (1982) home/personal computer developed by the small Dutch company MCP, was sold in its first incarnation as a kit for hobbyists. Later it was sold ready to use. It consisted of several Eurocard PCB's with DIN 41612 connectors, and a backplane all based on a 19-inch rack configuration. It was the first commercially available Dutch personal/home computer. The Aster computer could use the software written for the popular Tandy TRS-80 computer while fixing many of the problems of that computer, but it could also run CP/M software, with a big amount of free memory Transient Program Area, (TPA) and a full 80×25 display, and it could be used as a Videotext terminal. Although the Aster was a clone of the TRS-80 Model I it was in fact more compatible with the TRS-80 M