Personal computers: 1986 Produced hordes of clones 80386-based pcs approached the power of workstations new laptops look for their market copy protection vanished, desktop publishing flourished

Abstract

The large number of IBM PC `clones' that appeared during the year are described and compared. Compaq's 80386 line is discussed in some detail. The use of the PC AT bus by Compaq and the possibility of its adoption as an IEEE standard is considered. Computers outside the IBM standard are described. The emergence of hard cards-hard disks mounted on plug-in accessory cards containing VLSI controllers-and the growing use of laptops are examined. The issue of copy protection is briefly discussed.