The Worst PCs in America
Nineteen machines you're really glad you don't own.Posted by Harry McCracken | Monday, October 19, 2009
“Trash-80” may be too kind
“Ugly even for a TRS-80” is a really insulting thing to say about a computer, but in the case of Alan Sisk’s TRS-80 Model 12, it fits. The dual 8-inch floppies were obsolete technology even when the Model 12 was released in 1983; it originally had a white case, but Alan’s example appears to have been toasted to a golden brown.
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The Worst PC in America: Found! | Technologizer Says:
October 20th, 2009 at 12:55 am[…] wrap things up, I’ve published some visual highlights of selected contenders as a slideshow, and you can also check out all the […]
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Tom Bonner (tombonner) 's status on Tuesday, 20-Oct-09 17:02:58 UTC - Identi.ca Says:
October 20th, 2009 at 10:03 am[…] https://www.technologizer.com/2009/10/19/the-worst-pcs-in-america/ a few seconds ago from web […]
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Benford Does Stuff » Blog Archive » Technologizer Likes my Old Computer Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:19 pm[…] one of my old machines managed to be deemed worthy of featuring in Technologizer’s “Worst PC in America” […]
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Jobs Calls Out Android Over Porn — Think Geek Australia Says:
April 10th, 2010 at 8:22 pm[…] The Worst PCs in America […]
October 20th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Look on the left side, towards the bottom. There is a sort of beige piece with a broken fragment of a CD on top of it. That looks suspiciously like a Mac floppy drive from the 90s, unless Packard Bell also used that exact same floppy sled design, and I doubt it.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
You said 19 machines – but it’s actually only 18, since two of the pictures were of my computer (I’m Tyler H!). Good (or should I say bad?) stuff though!
October 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
@Mike
Yeah… that was a mac floppy drive holder… We filmed another thing that day called electronic baseball and I had a few old mac zip drives laying around…
October 21st, 2009 at 7:11 am
Let’s be fair…The Trash 80 was a trailblazer if you go back nearly 30 years. The control key had to be pressed just right in concert with another key for certain commands to work.
It was the second computer I used after the Apple II. Or maybe, I used the Apple II first….can’t recall exactly. But I used them to send page copy to the company producing proofs for printing. It was magic in 1982-83.
I used a Teleram portable newspaper terminal (svelte at 30 pounds) in 1977, but it was not a personal computer.And who can forget Atex? I can.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
The last one is great, so Office Space-esque!
October 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
If one can afford a PS3, and choose to stay with a 13″ CRT, and not buy a cheapo 20+” LCD… Sorry, that’s a lifestyle choice…
October 28th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I’m honored to make the slideshow LOL!
I was going ti fire up the Dell Optiplex GX1 with this contest on the screen but didn’t want to wait the 5 minutes it takes to make it to the Internet ;). Once online it does OK until about every 6th or 7th click. Then it has to “think” about what it’s going to do next. Which isn’t always what it should do…
November 6th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
lol, and he wrote a comprehensive review of it here:
http://benford.bluhelix.com/touch-screen-computing-is-the-future/
February 9th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Very useless article – though mildly entertaining. The title sucks – makes it sound like a Consumer Reports review kind of thing. Should be titled “The Most F’d Up PC’s Not In The Landfill”.
April 19th, 2010 at 7:30 am
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