Part 2: The 16-Bit Series Welcome back to The Reg FOSS desk's roundup of blunders and blunders from the dawn of the microcomputer industry onward—at least the ones that are most memorable to us.
#1 Mistake in Business IT of all 3 IT
In Part 1 of this feature series, we took a look at some of the missed opportunities of the early era of mass-market microcomputers: the eight-bit machines. This overlaps significantly with the next generation of 16-bit machines.
Sinclair Research did very well with the inexpensive ZX81 and had another hit with the ZX Spectrum. However, the next machine it launched was one of Sir Clive's most critical mistakes.
References to George Orwell's totalitarian nightmare fuel aside, geekier types remember 1984 as the year the first Apple Macintosh debuted. Apple launched it on January 24 – almost two weeks after Sinclair Research launched its next-generation 16-bit computer, the Sinclair QL.
