When microprocessors ( CPU chips ) became available, SWTPC became one of the first suppliers of microcomputers to the general public, focusing on designs using the Motorola 6800 and, later, the 6809 CPUs.

The Business Operating System, or BOS, is an early cross-platform operating system originally produced for Intel 8080 and Motorola 6800 computers, subsequently for Zilog Z80-based computers, and then later for most microcomputers of the 1980s.

It was developed on home made Motorola 6800 based microcomputers in assembler code.

The Ministry recognized that a small proportion of teachers and other school personnel were already quite involved with microcomputers and that some schools were acquiring first-generation machines.

As microcomputers took over the industry, well-proven and reliable ARCNET was also offered as an inexpensive LAN for these machines.

While the BK was somewhat compatible with larger and more expensive DVK professional model microcomputers and industrial minicomputers like the SM EVM series, its meager 32 KB memory of which only 16 KB was generally available to programmers ( an extended memory mode supported 28 KB but limited video output to a quarter of the screen ) generally precluded direct use of software for the more powerful machines.

From teaching machines to microcomputers: Some milestones in the history of computer-based instruction.

The category of early microcomputers encompasses the microprocessor-based development system / hobbyist microcomputers being made and sold as " DIY " kits or pre-built machines in relatively small numbers in the mid-1970s, before the advent of the later, simpler to operate, significantly hotter-selling home computers ( listed in its own category ).

The title is disputed by other machines, such as the LINC and the PDP-8, and some maintain that only microcomputers, such as those which appeared in the 1970s, can be called personal computers.

There are many types of electronic amplifiers, commonly used in radio and television transmitters and receivers, high-fidelity (" hi-fi ") stereo equipment, microcomputers and other electronic digital equipment, and guitar and other instrument amplifiers.

* Capricorn ( microprocessor ), a family of microprocessors used in the HP series 80 scientific microcomputers

* Compact Cassette used with sound recording and reproduction and data storage for early microcomputers

And in the early days of microcomputers, paper tape or audio cassette tape ( see Kansas City standard ) or nothing were used instead.

There are many types of electronic amplifiers, commonly used in radio and television transmitters and receivers, high-fidelity (" hi-fi ") stereo equipment, microcomputers and other electronic digital equipment, and guitar and other instrument amplifiers.

Midrange computer is a designation used by IBM for a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframes and microcomputers.

The Ace differed from other microcomputers of the time in that it used FORTH instead of the more common BASIC.

At its introduction, the 68000 was first used in high-priced systems, including multiuser microcomputers like the WICAT 150, early Alpha Microsystems computers, Sage II / IV, Tandy TRS-80 Model 16, and Fortune 32: 16 ; single-user workstations such as Hewlett-Packard's HP 9000 Series 200 systems, the first Apollo / Domain systems, Sun Microsystems ' Sun-1, and the Corvus Concept ; and graphics terminals like Digital Equipment Corporation's VAXstation 100 and Silicon Graphics ' IRIS 1000 and 1200.

Some early microcomputers used a specific form of AFSK modulation, the Kansas City standard, to store data on audio cassettes.

The combination of CP / M and S-100 bus computers loosely patterned on the MITS Altair was an early " industry standard " for microcomputers, and this computer platform was widely used in business through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s, expanding to include 16-bit CPUs and multiuser capability.

Probably the most common type of TTL, these were used as glue logic in microcomputers, essentially replacing the former H, L, and S sub-families.

Most of these simple, early microcomputers were sold as electronic kits -- bags full of loose components which the buyer had to solder together before the system could be used.

After the 1981 release by IBM of its IBM PC, the term personal computer became generally used for microcomputers compatible with the IBM PC architecture ( PC compatible ).

In the 1980s the Graphical Kernel System ( GKS ) library, based on a 1970s specification with a similar basic geometry and command structure to NAPLPS, was widely implemented on microcomputers, and became the basis of Digital Research's " GSX " graphics system used in their GEM GUI.

ADB was also used on a number of other 680x0-based microcomputers made by Sun, HP, NeXT and such.

Under this model, large mainframes and minicomputers would be used primarily to serve up data over local area networks to microcomputers that would interpret, display and manipulate that data.

* Kansas City standard, a standard for encoding binary data on tape used by many early microcomputers.

dBase II was the first widely used database management system ( DBMS ) for microcomputers.

" POKE " is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any direct manipulation of the contents of memory, rather than just via BASIC, particularly among people who learned computing on the 8-bit microcomputers of the late 70s and early 80s.

Other producers also made microprocessors which were widely used in microcomputers.

At the other end of the computing spectrum from the microcomputers, the powerful supercomputers of the era also used integrated circuit technology.

In the early days of microcomputers, computer memory space was often limited, so the disk operating system was an extension of the operating system.

When microcomputers rarely had expensive disk drives of any kind, the need to have software to manage such devices ( the disks ) carried much status.

Virtually all early microcomputers were essentially boxes with lights and switches ; one had to read and understand binary numbers and machine language to program and use them ( the Datapoint 2200 was a striking exception, bearing a modern design based on a monitor, keyboard, and tape and disk drives ).

Other contributors included Jef Raskin, later credited as a leader in the Macintosh development, and Gary Kildall, who had created CP / M, the first disk operating system for microcomputers which was not married to proprietary hardware.

The others are different floppy disk encoding methods used in some microcomputers until the late 1980s.

These families were used in many microcomputers and home computers including the Radio Shack TRS-80, Acorn Electron, BBC Master, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes and the SAM Coupé, as well as the + D and DISCiPLE disk interfaces for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 1581 for the Commodore 64 and the Atari XF551 for the Atari XL / XE.

UCSD Pascal was developed at The University of California, San Diego Institute for Information Systems in 1978 to provide students with a common operating system that could run on any of the then available microcomputers as well as campus DEC PDP-11 minicomputers.

The Inform website lists links to freely available interpreters for 15 desktop operating systems ( including 8-bit microcomputers from the 1980s such as the Apple II, TRS-80 and Sinclair, and grouping " Unix " and " Windows " as one each ), 10 mobile operating systems ( including Palm OS and the Game Boy ), and three interpreter platforms ( Emacs, Java and JavaScript ).

CP / M ( Control Program / Monitor ) was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080 / 85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc.

The established small system operating software was CP / M from Digital Research which was in use both at the hobbyist level and by the more professional of those using microcomputers.

The company's operating systems, starting with CP / M for 8080 / Z80-based microcomputers, were the de facto standard of their era, as MS-DOS and MS Windows came later.

Apple DOS refers to operating systems for the Apple II series of microcomputers from late 1978 through early 1983.

TRS-DOS ( which stood for the Tandy Radio Shack-Disk Operating System ) was the operating system for the Tandy TRS-80 line of 8-bit Zilog Z80 microcomputers that were sold through Radio Shack through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.

The DOS family of operating systems ( such as MS-DOS and PC-DOS ) date back to early microcomputers, which were primitive by modern computing standards.