The QL's original competition (business market)
Posted: Sun May 23, 2021 8:05 pm
There's a lot been said about how the QL when it was released was obviously not a business computer but few have looked at what the competition was in the UK at the time.
So, here we have the British business micro which would have been closest in capability to the QL, though very much more expensive.
The Apricot F-Series.
The original F1 was announced and released in 1984 and was based upon a 4MHz 8086 and in the UK came with 256KB of RAM and a single built in 720K 3.5" floppy. Although it ran MSDOS it wasn't IBM PC compatible. The price was around four times the price of the QL, which would have been quite an investment for any business.
The 8086 is a full 16 bit processor, unlike the ICM PC/XT's 8088, so even though it's running at the same 4MHz the memory access is double the speed as it's not multiplexed.
The machine pictured is the second version, the F2, which has 512KB of RAM and twin floppies and arrived in 1985.
So, if we put the QL into perspective, for a small business it could well have been a reasonable option, if the press hadn't slammed the Microdrives.
If Sinclair had built the machine at double the price and added a single 3.5" floppy things could also have been different... but that's all history.
So, here we have the British business micro which would have been closest in capability to the QL, though very much more expensive.
The Apricot F-Series.
The original F1 was announced and released in 1984 and was based upon a 4MHz 8086 and in the UK came with 256KB of RAM and a single built in 720K 3.5" floppy. Although it ran MSDOS it wasn't IBM PC compatible. The price was around four times the price of the QL, which would have been quite an investment for any business.
The 8086 is a full 16 bit processor, unlike the ICM PC/XT's 8088, so even though it's running at the same 4MHz the memory access is double the speed as it's not multiplexed.
The machine pictured is the second version, the F2, which has 512KB of RAM and twin floppies and arrived in 1985.
So, if we put the QL into perspective, for a small business it could well have been a reasonable option, if the press hadn't slammed the Microdrives.
If Sinclair had built the machine at double the price and added a single 3.5" floppy things could also have been different... but that's all history.