A8 worlds third best selling 8-bitter

[high voltage]

Here's you go the A8 was the 3rd best selling 8 bit computer in the world

 

 

I say the A8 is the second best selling 8 bit computer in the world, because the ZX doesn't count.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2014 by high voltage

[kenjennings]

Seriously, those are worldwide numbers? Apple II only sold 2 million? That has to be wrong.

[JamesD]

I do find it interesting that the A8 is around the 4 million mark and not the 5 million mark people kept wanting in a previous thread.
However, the Apple II sold closer to 7 million which pretty much calls the entire article into question.
C64 numbers also look slightly low for the final total but that might have been close for the time.

[atarian63]

I do find it interesting that the A8 is around the 4 million mark and not the 5 million mark people kept wanting in a previous thread.

However, the Apple II sold closer to 7 million which pretty much calls the entire article into question.

C64 numbers also look slightly low for the final total but that might have been close for the time.

 

 

wonder how many apples sold to consumers and how many to Schools(yes I am discounting those sales as the end users had no choice). my bet it it is 80/20 ,in other words Atari and others were adopted by many more consumers than apple.

[UKRetrogamer]

...because the ZX doesn't count.

Care to explain WHY you feel the ZX doesn't count?

[José Pereira]

And Atari was all world where:

Apple was mostly in U.S.A. and Brasil by 3rt party clones

ZX was mainly U.K. and some others in Europe

Amstrad was almost only U.K., Spain, France and Germany under Schneider partnership

MSX sure more but under many different brands/companies. All them sum count?

 

If you discount the Public schools,... for Apple and BBCs then I'm almost sure it can be or a 4th place if you consider MSX (even if only MSX1) with all them together.

I don't think CPCs just those 4countries beat A8 in many countries all over Americas and Europe. In most of the other European countries CPCs are almost non-existant, so are BBCs, MSXs, Apple2 and C16.

All world sure number1 its C64 and Spectrums almost sure 2nd place, although mainly only Europe it was 1st place in many of them.

Edited June 7, 2014 by José Pereira

[JamesD]

wonder how many apples sold to consumers and how many to Schools(yes I am discounting those sales as the end users had no choice). my bet it it is 80/20 ,in other words Atari and others were adopted by many more consumers than apple.

Which completely ignores the fact that they sold a lot of machines for business use.

[JamesD]

Care to explain WHY you feel the ZX doesn't count?

Because he said so.

Anything that keeps the Atari from being the #2 seller clearly doesn't count.

[high voltage]

I do find it interesting that the A8 is around the 4 million mark and not the 5 million mark people kept wanting in a previous thread.

However, the Apple II sold closer to 7 million which pretty much calls the entire article into question.

C64 numbers also look slightly low for the final total but that might have been close for the time.

 

 

Let's say the UK numbers for the ZX are correct, the C64 was the second best selling 8-bitter in UK, so sales for C64 in UK are less than the ZX sales numbers.

In Germany the C64 sold 3 million during its lifetime (source CHIP Kultcomputer Special issue 2014).

Does 6 million sound right for USA? I always thought it sold more than the A2.

[high voltage]

Because he said so.

.

 

That's true, I could say I really hate that thing, no typewriter keyboard, no space bar, no colour, no sound, no joystick ports, no FDD. I mean what was the ZX good for?

But I better keep stum.

Edited June 7, 2014 by high voltage

[carlsson]

Ehh.. since when does the ZX Spectrum lack colour and sound?

[flashjazzcat]

You could say it must have been good for something if it sold in huge numbers, but on the other hand popularity is no direct measure of superiority. One need only look at today's popular music charts.

[high voltage]

You could say it must have been good for something if it sold in huge numbers, but on the other hand popularity is no direct measure of superiority. One need only look at today's popular music charts.

It was cheap.

[high voltage]

Ehh.. since when does the ZX Spectrum lack colour and sound?

Colour clash, that was a cool feature.

[+MrFish]

You could say it must have been good for something if it sold in huge numbers, but on the other hand popularity is no direct measure of superiority. One need only look at today's popular music charts.

 

That's right, but one thing popularity does do for computers is bring in the software developers, and that inherently adds value to the system, which in the case of the ZX added up to a measure of superiority in comparison to the Atari 8-Bits.

[carlsson]

Well, a lot of computers are limited to one foreground and one background per cell of 8x8 pixels. Some solve it by adding hardware sprites, others have various high resolution modes that take much more memory or like the C64, go to multicolour mode at half the horizontal resolution and squeeze in a few more colours.

 

Indeed Sir Clive sold on price, that was his motivation starting with the ZX80 and all the way to the QL. The market of more expensive computers was already crowded, so it would have been much more difficult to make an impact on that market. Also, like it or not but the ZX computers (together with Commodore's vertical integration) put a lot of price pressure on the competitors.

[ClausB]

The ZX80, ZX81, and TS1000 were great little machines. Minimal hardware coupled with very clever firmware. I built a kit '81 in '82 and enjoyed it thoroughly. The single key commands compensated for the cheap keyboard. Efficient storage made up for the small memory. The external RAM pack was a problem, but I installed SRAM internally and it was plenty reliable.

 

[+MrFish]

Well, a lot of computers are limited to one foreground and one background per cell of 8x8 pixels. Some solve it by adding hardware sprites, others have various high resolution modes that take much more memory or like the C64, go to multicolour mode at half the horizontal resolution and squeeze in a few more colours.

 

Its hi-res is better than what Atari 8-Bits have for sure. The A8's make up for it with all the other available modes. The spectrum's palette is what I don't like though, especially seeing that pink and turquoise used so much. It reminds me of the old CGA graphics from the IBM's.

Edited June 7, 2014 by MrFish

[Marius]

I must add that although my 800xl is since 1984 my most appreciated computer ever, I have very fond memories of my zx81 (well a Sinclair timex 1000). It was a nice little thingy, which amazed me. Played frogger for months on it.

[+MrFish]

Played frogger for months on it.

 

That looks like a pretty nice version. Nice sounds, music, animations, and good use of color for the spectrum. The only thing is, the frog isn't green -- except when he reaches the goal!

Edited June 7, 2014 by MrFish

[José Pereira]

Here's you go the A8 was the 3rd best selling 8 bit computer in the world

 

 

I say the A8 is the second best selling 8 bit computer in the world, because the ZX doesn't count.

 

 

Hmm I was all weekend with the mobile phone so I couldn't see this picture untill now.

Now I get it, that is from Germany only and this you get from they post Schneider CPC. If it was all countries they should had post Amstrad/Schneider CPC.

Strange that I always thought from that old German games listing magazine that C16/Plus4 also had many users in germany...

Edited June 9, 2014 by José Pereira

[Bill Loguidice]

Those numbers, unfortunately, can't be entirely accurate. The Apple II series definitely sold a bit more, and we don't have concrete numbers on other 8-bits like the CoCo series or the TRS-80 series, and other computers, like the VIC-20, are conspicuously absent even though they're known to have also sold more than a million. The other issue, of course, is we don't know how these numbers are being counted. All of those platforms mentioned had multiple computers in the series. If you're going to count all Atari 8-bits (as the chart indicates), are you also counting all Apple IIs including the IIgs? Are you counting the C-128 and C-64G in the C-64s numbers? What about clones? What about MSX-specification computers, which in aggregate sold more than any other 8-bit other than the C-64 but weren't a single manufacturer platform? Etc.

[FastRobPlus]

I've been working on aggregating year over year console and home computer sell-thru rates for a while and am always hunting for new sources of data. Apple II appears to have reached the 4-5 million mark and Atari 8-bit 2.5.

 

Interestingly, if you chart it out, you see that at any given time, nearly all of the computers had their time as "one of the top 3" It looks like in nearly every instance where the home computer didn't become one of the top 3, it's because the manufacturer knew that they could not break into one of the top spots and pulled the plug on the machine.

 

I could really use help fleshing out the numbers, particularly for non-US systems.

 

This is where I've gotten so far:

 

 

consolebase.xls

Edited June 9, 2014 by FastRobPlus

[Bill Loguidice]

I've been working on aggregating year over year console and home computer sell-thru rates for a while and am always hunting for new sources of data. This is where I've gotten so far:

 

rise_and_fall_computers.PNG

 

consolebase.xls

 

Excellent work so far! Those numbers look accurate based on some of my own past research. I look forward to seeing you complete this critical project and have it vetted with a larger audience that can hopefully help tune the numbers even further. I'm sure you're aware of it, but this is a similar project (now defunct) that I've also found to be an excellent, well-researched, resource that I've relied on over the years: http://jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137

[FastRobPlus]

 

Excellent work so far! Those numbers look accurate based on some of my own past research. I look forward to seeing you complete this critical project and have it vetted with a larger audience that can hopefully help tune the numbers even further. I'm sure you're aware of it, but this is a similar project (now defunct) that I've also found to be an excellent, well-researched, resource that I've relied on over the years: http://jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137

 

Hi Bill,

 

I used that extensively as a control. I loved his idea about getting numbers from quarterly earnings reports. Unfortunately, I have had very little luck in finding any.

My primary source is similar to what started this topic - sales figures from magazines.

Creative Computing actually dedicated an entire monthly page to this for a while.