Great 1st Hand Descriptions of the Obscure and Archaic

The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time

By The Editors of PC World

IBM's first PC, announced on August 12, 1981, was far from the first personal computer -- but when it arrived, there was near-universal agreement that it was likely to be a landmark machine. It was. And 25 years later, it still ranks among the most significant computers ever.

Like the IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150, the greatest systems have always had ambitions to boldly go where no computer has gone before. Without these innovative machines, the PC revolution would have been a lot less... well, revolutionary. So we decided to celebrate the IBM PC's 25th birthday by identifying the 25 PCs that have mattered most -- from any manufacturer, and from any era.

No single characteristic makes a computer great. But we managed to boil down an array of winning qualities into four factors, all of which happen to begin with the letter I.

Innovation: Did the PC do anything that was genuinely new? Did it incorporate the latest technology? Impact: Was it widely imitated? Did it become part of the cultural zeitgeist? Industrial design: Was it a looker? Did it have clever features that made using it a pleasure? Intangibles: Was there anything else about it that set it apart from the same ol' same ol'?

Armed with this scale, we considered dozens of PCs -- which meant that we also had to consider the question "What is a PC, exactly?" Ultimately we decided that a PC is anything that's recognizably a desktop or portable computer in design -- or, alternatively, anything that runs an operating system originally created for desktops and laptops. After a lot of nostalgic debate, we selected our winners. Which systems we picked -- and didn't pick -- for our Top 25 may be controversial. If one of your favorites didn't make our roster, check out our list of 25 near-great PCs.

Just to drum up a little suspense, we'll reveal the Top 25 starting with number 25, and then work our way backward to the single greatest PC of all time. (You can also jump to the complete list of our Top 25 picks, or browse the list by decade.)

Ready?

Greatest PCs:

25. Non-Linear Systems Kaypro II (1982)

Non-Linear Systems' Kaypro II didn't break new ground when it appeared toward the end of 1982, but it was a classic case of the right product at the right time. Even more than the Osborne (which had pioneered the concept of the luggable microcomputer), it appealed to a growing group of nongeeks who were awakening to the productivity benefits of personal computers but couldn't afford (or didn't want to spend) several thousand dollars for an Apple or IBM PC along with the necessary software and peripherals (such as a printer).

Named for NLS founder (and digital voltmeter inventor) Andrew Kay, the Kaypro II -- and its series of successors over the ensuing years, including the 4 and the 2x -- was a moderately priced alternative. When first released, the Kaypro II cost $1795 and, like the Osborne, came with all the productivity software (word processor, spreadsheet) most people would need. Encased in grey and blue metal, the Kaypro was rugged and utilitarian in design: You could latch the keyboard over the 9-inch monochrome display (far roomier than the Osborne's stingy 5-incher) and carry it like a suitcase. But at 26 pounds, it was a heavy piece of luggage. The Kaypro line also represented the last gasp of the CP/M operating system: By the mid-1980s, MS-DOS was already becoming the lingua franca of non-Apple personal computing.

The Kaypro's affordability and out-of-the-box usability was very popular with journalists, including myself: In 1984 I took out a $1600 loan to buy a Kaypro 2x -- my first computer -- and by then the purchase price also got me a daisy-wheel printer. A year or so later, I became a TV critic for a newspaper, which bought me a Hayes Smartmodem that let me electronically transmit my reviews from home (the modem also enabled my introduction to online computing). I used that Kaypro and Hayes modem until 1992, when I took out another loan to buy my first IBM clone. I've never again used the same PC for eight years.

24. Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 (2006)

23. Apple eMate 300 (1997)

Over the past three decades, Apple Computer has released a bunch of great PCs that had a huge impact on the marketplace. Here's one that had almost no impact during its short life -- aside from its cameo in the film Batman & Robin as Batgirl's (Alicia Silverstone's) PC -- but we love it anyway.

The $799 eMate was idiosyncratic in virtually every way a computer can be idiosyncratic, starting with its target audience: schoolkids. It ran an operating system designed for PDAs (Apple's Newton OS). It didn't have a hard drive, but it did have pen input. It looked vaguely like a notebook, but its industrial design -- with a green, curvy case that looked like it had sprung from the mind of science-fiction illustrator H.R. Giger -- was utterly unique.

The eMate attracted a cult audience among business users. But Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple soon after its launch, wasn't a believer: Less than a year after the eMate shipped, he killed it, along with the rest of the Newton line. The cult continues, though -- you can even find hacks to overclock the eMate at Stephanie's Newton Web Site.

Almost a decade later, the eMate feels like an early pass at the kind of innovative, affordable educational PC that the world is still trying to create. Too bad it turned out to be a dead end.

22. Hewlett-Packard 100LX (1993)

21. Alienware Area-51 (1998)

20. Gateway 2000 Destination (1996)

19. Apple iMac, Second Generation (2002)

18. Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 300 (1993)

The innovative OmniBook 300 wasn't just one of the first subnotebooks -- it was one of the most innovative hardware designs ever, albeit one that didn't prove particularly influential. Weighing 2.9 pounds, the system stored Windows 3.1, Excel 4.0, Word 2.0, and MS-DOS 5.0 in ROM memory rather than on a hard drive; this allowed it to boot up instantly. User storage was solid-state too, on a 40MB PCMCIA Type III hard disk or a 10MB PCMCIA Type II flash-disk drive.

Productivity was a central theme for the OmniBook, which started at $1950. The unit came with LapLink Remote Access and HP's organizational tools (contacts, appointments, and a financial calculator, same as in the HP 100LX), and provided one-button access to all applications. It also had a unique integrated mouse that popped out of the laptop's right side on a thin piece of plastic; the design eliminated the need for an annoying mouse cable, but the mouse was small and awkward to move about.

Given the OmniBook's basic 386SXLV CPU, monochrome 9-inch VGA screen, and power-friendly ROM storage, it's not surprising HP gave the notebook a high battery-life rating -- up to 9 hours of power for the 10MB flash-disk version. (In a pinch, the unit could run on AA batteries -- unheard of for a computer with a full-size keyboard.) Although the solid-state approach to laptop storage didn't catch on at the time, it's back today in products like Samsung's new 16GB and 32GB flash-memory drives. Funny how things come full circle.

17. Toshiba T1000 (1987)

Toshiba's wildly popular T1000 brought DOS in a truly lap-friendly portable size. The T1000 measured 12 by 2 by 11 inches and weighed 6.4 pounds -- a veritable featherweight compared with suitcase-size luggables, and more than 3.5 pounds lighter than its nearest competitor, the Datavue Spark. It was also cheaper than most laptops of its time.

The T1000's durable clamshell design accommodated a full-size 82-key keyboard, a 720KB 3.5-inch floppy drive, 512KB of RAM, and an internal modem. The unit embedded MS-DOS 2.11 in ROM -- which eliminated the need to have two floppy drives, as some competing notebooks of that era had, but also made it impossible to use certain software (such as WordPerfect Executive, which required two disks to run).

To achieve its size and cost, the T1000 made some sacrifices in CPU and battery performance. Nonetheless, this model helped catapult Toshiba to the fore of mobile computing, and it paved the way for the next wave of laptops, including number 18 on our list, HP's OmniBook 300 (above). (You can read the T1000 quick-reference guide at this fan site.)

16. Tandy TRS-80 Model I (1977)

Tandy's TRS-80 Model I lacked the pizzazz of the Apple II, but it was the first computer to be truly marketed to the masses: Over 200,000 of the monochromatic little machines were sold by Radio Shack, an electronics retailer with thousands of locations in an age when almost nobody had ever heard of a computer store.

For $600, the first iteration of the TRS-80 gave you a measly 4KB of RAM and a rudimentary version of the BASIC language, and it stored programs on sluggish, flaky audiocassette tapes. As with other early PCs, the best way to get it to do something was to write a program from scratch. "There was an almost indescribable joy to be had the first time a program that you wrote yourself actually worked," remembers early owner Craig Landrum.

Over time the Model I gained more memory, disk drives, networking, and other enhancements; acquired a library of thousands of programs; and saw the debut of progeny such as the TRS-80 Model 100 portable (number 8 on our list). TRS-80 computers were the first to be the subject of magazines devoted entirely to one company's PCs; today, they're impressively documented at Ira Goldklang's TRS-80.com.

15. Shuttle SV24 Barebone System (2001)

14. Atari 800 (1979)

Two years after Atari unleashed its first video game console, later dubbed the Atari 2600, the company shipped its first home computers. In many ways the Atari 800 -- the more advanced of the two models Atari introduced in late 1979 -- redefined the expectations of what a home computer could do, especially in graphics and sound.

Part game machine, part productivity enhancer, the $999 Atari 800 was the first home computer to feature a custom video coprocessor in addition to its CPU, which was the same 8-bit 6502 used in the Apple II. This design enabled the Atari 800 to generate 128 colors (256 in later versions) on screen. The system could also display four programmable animated screen objects at once -- a boon for action games such as Star Raiders, the system's "killer app" -- and it had another custom chip that helped it produce superior sound (four voices, across 3.5 octaves). Two cartridge slots under the hood were available for games and other applications, and four joystick ports were included, too.

While Atari eventually replaced its 8-bit computers with the 16-bit ST line, designer Jay Miner, who led the team behind the Atari 800's video chips, went on to lead the group that developed the Commodore Amiga 1000's graphics system.

Like all kids my age, I wanted an Atari 2600 to play games. But my mom thought it would be a good idea to get something that could be educational, so my family decided on an Atari 800. Many a night of head-to-head Star Raiders, Missile Command, and Pac-Man tournaments ensued with my dad (all very educational, of course). But the Atari 800 wasn't entirely about the games; I also used mine to learn BASIC programming and compose my school papers. For years my memory retained AtariWriter's string of control codes--conceptually similar to HTML coding -- for such common tasks as making text italic or bold. Little did my mom know then where all of that would lead...

13. IBM Personal Computer/AT Model 5170 (1984)

Three years after IBM's first PC shipped, the PC/AT marked both a revolution and an evolution in personal computing. The revolution came in the form of powerful specs; the evolution came in the system's design refinements (no, we're not talking about its honking big beige box). It was another IBM hit, although it also turned out to be the last IBM model to serve as a standards bearer for the entire PC industry -- a year later, Compaq's Deskpro 386 ended IBM's stranglehold on PC innovation.

The $5295 PC/AT was the first system to use Intel's 80286 CPU (first a 6-MHz model and later an 8-MHz model). It also featured a 20MB (or greater) hard disk that was faster than, and had double the capacity of, the PC XT's original hard drive; supported both 8-bit and 16-bit expansion cards; used IBM PC-DOS 3.0, which supported high-density 1.2MB (5.25-inch) floppy disks; and even integrated a battery on the motherboard to power a real-time clock. Its keyboard, meanwhile, introduced the basic layout we still use today, including a number pad (with cursor keys and a key lock) and dedicated function keys. And the system could handle advanced graphics with its optional 16-color Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) or 256-color Professional Graphics Controller (PGC).

Like many PC model designations, AT stood for something -- and no, it had nothing to do with the Imperial AT-AT walkers featured in The Empire Strikes Back. The term was short for Advanced Technology.

12. MITS Altair 8800 (1975)

Computer historians are still squabbling over whether MITS's Altair was the first true personal computer. (Earlier candidates include the Kenbak-1 and Micral-N.) What's undeniable is that it was "the first machine to really capture the imagination of the geek sector in a big way," says Erik Klein of Vintage-Computer.com. "The fact that other companies quickly jumped onto the bandwagon was proof of its power and allure."

The Altair started life as a $397 build-it-yourself kit -- little more than a box, a board, an Intel 8080 CPU (which MITS bought at a discount because of cosmetic blemishes), and 256 bytes of RAM. At first you needed to program it by flipping switches, until Bill Gates and Paul Allen started a tiny company called Micro-soft (yes, with a hyphen) and came up with a version of the BASIC programming language that would work on the system.

Software from Bill Gates wasn't the only thing the Altair had in common with today's systems. Much of the infrastructure that would support later PCs -- from disk-drive manufacturers to software developers to computer stores -- sprung up to support it. There were even clones, such as the popular IMSAI 8080.

The Altair's time as the dominant computing platform was brief, and in 1978 it was discontinued altogether. But what a legacy it left.

11. Sony VAIO 505GX (1998)

10. Apple PowerBook 100 (1991)

If your first portable computer doesn't succeed, try, try again. That's the lesson of the PowerBook 100, Apple's splendid successor to the famously awful Mac Portable, a machine we named to our list of the 25 worst tech products of all time.

Along with the higher-end PowerBook 140 and 170, the $2500 100 sported two features that the rest of the industry quickly cribbed. First, the company pushed the keyboard back toward the screen hinge, freeing up space for a wrist-rest area that made typing more comfortable. And in the center of that wrist rest sat a nice, large trackball, the best mobile pointing device of its era. (At the time, folks who ran Windows on portable computers were still futzing with unwieldy clip-on trackballs.) Those were just two of the more striking innovations in a slick laptop design that, according to Jim Carlton's book Apple, took the company from last place to first in laptop sales.

The PowerBook 100 -- which was, by the way, manufactured by Sony -- was discontinued in 1992. But the PowerBook line went on and on, coming to an end just this year, when the final 12-inch PowerBook was replaced by the MacBook.

9. Columbia Data Products MPC 1600-1 (1982)

When IBM created its first PC, it used an Intel 8088 CPU, off-the-shelf parts, and Microsoft's DOS -- which meant that other manufacturers could build machines that were at least reasonably compatible with it. They did, and the very first to ship one was Columbia Data Systems.

The $2995 MPC, whose name was short for "Multi Personal Computer," had double the typical IBM PC's RAM, more expansion slots and ports, and two floppy drives rather than one. At the time, Columbia's Fred Conte told InfoWorld that he didn't see the system going head-to-head with Big Blue. "It is a multibillion dollar marketplace, and if we can pick up a small percentage -- say, 2 to 3 percent--it will be a luxury," he said.

Columbia's PC soon had lots of company. At the COMDEX show in November 1982, a flurry of what were then called "IBM look-alikes" were announced -- so many that the show also saw the announcement of the first magazine specifically "For Second-Generation IBM PCs and Compatibles." Its name? PC World.

By the mid-1980s, Columbia foundered, and though the company still exists, it hasn't built a PC in a long time. But by producing the clone that other clones cloned, the company helped to define the Intel-and-Microsoft platform that dominates to this day.

8. Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (1983)

Though not quite the first notebook computer -- Epson's forgotten HX-20 preceded it -- Tandy's Model 100 was the first that caught on. (One thing that didn't catch on: Tandy's desire that the machine be known as a MEWS, for Micro Executive Work Station.)

In a day when most "portable computers" were 25-pound behemoths, the 3.4-pound Model 100 was indeed the size of a notebook, which meant it could go places that computers had never gone before. Yet it packed a 2-by-7.5-inch screen that could display 40 characters across and eight lines of text; a full-size keyboard that's still impressive today; built-in software such as a word processor and spreadsheet; and a 300-bps modem that let you connect to services such as CompuServe.

Variants of the Model 100 included 1984's Model 200, which introduced the clamshell case that almost every portable computer would eventually adopt. Well into the 1990s, some journalists were still toting these Radio Shack systems -- and sites such as Club 100 continue to help people use them.

7. Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)

The Commodore 64 may have been the best-selling computer of its time, but its follow-up, developed by a Silicon Valley startup that Commodore acquired, was a vastly better computer. Years ahead of its time, the Amiga was the world's first multimedia, multitasking personal computer (see an early commercial for it on YouTube).

The $1500 (sans monitor) Amiga came with the same Motorola 68000 CPU used in the Apple Macintosh. But the most innovative thing about its architecture was its three coprocessors -- they helped provide the Amiga's graphics and sound, which were stunning for the time. Its main video processor (dubbed Denise) helped Amigas accomplish feats like 3D animation, full-motion video, and fancy TV processing years before other computers. And the four-voice stereo sound chip (Paula) provided speech synthesis, produced more realistic audio than the Commodore 64's famous SID chip, and helped inspire Soundtracker, the first "tracker-style" music sequencing program.

The original Amiga was rechristened the Amiga 1000 when it was replaced by the Amiga 500 and 2000 in 1987; later Amiga-based products included the Amiga 4000T tower and the CD32, a gaming console. Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994, and the Amiga name and technologies bounced from owner to owner in subsequent years. Modern iterations of NewTek's Video Toaster and LightWave 3D software continue to be used for major TV and movie productions to this day.

In 1987 I had sort of lost interest in PCs -- until I got my first real job, which happened to be in an office next to a computer store called The Memory Location. I walked by its window and saw an Amiga 500 showing off everything it could do. And what it could do was astonishing, given that garden-variety IBM PCs often didn't do color at the time. I collected enough paychecks to buy an Amiga and stuck with the platform until the IBM world caught up -- which took years.

6. IBM Personal Computer, Model 5150 (1981)

Many key moments in PC history weren't identifiable as such when they happened. (Was there any reason to pay much attention when a couple of young guys named Steve decided to start a microcomputer company and name it after a type of fruit?) But when the company that was synonymous with computers announced its first PC on August 12, 1981, everyone knew it was a great milestone in the history of a very young industry.

Technology-wise, the most interesting thing about IBM's Personal Computer, Model 5150, was its CPU: Intel's 8088, a powerful 16-bit processor in an era when most popular models still used basic 8-bit CPUs. IBM offered the system with several operating systems, including the then-popular CP/M, something called P-System, and a new OS that IBM named PC-DOS but that most people would remember as MS-DOS for versions marketed by publisher Microsoft. (Legendarily, Microsoft's OS was based on QDOS, or "Quick and Dirty Operating System," which it picked up for a song from a small Seattle company.)

Within 18 months IBM's machine sat at the center of a booming PC ecology, with a bevy of hardware add-ons, third-party software, clones, books, and magazines. Some of IBM's later machines were hits and some were flops, but all of them, like the vast majority of computers on the planet today, were direct descendants of the IBM Personal Computer. (Read IBM's take on its own archives.)

5. IBM ThinkPad 700C (1992)

Unveiled at Comdex in 1992, IBM's ThinkPad 700C ushered in a new era for laptop computers: Now, the laptop could be both useful and stylish. The first ThinkPad's distinctive black case and its red TrackPoint pointing device in the middle of the keyboard were striking departures from other notebooks, which tended to be practically interchangeable, chunky, dull gray or beige boxes with trackballs that hung off to the side or sat like a lump below the keyboard.

One of three ThinkPad models at launch, along with the 300 and 500 (the numbering scheme was reportedly inspired by BMW's car lines) the $4350 ThinkPad 700C was IBM's top-of-the-line system. It came with an eye-catching 256-color, 10.4-inch TFT VGA color screen (large by 1992 standards), a removable 120MB hard drive, a 25-MHz 486SLC processor, and a comfortable touch-typist-friendly keyboard. Current ThinkPads -- now manufactured by Lenovo -- may be radically more powerful than the 700C, but they retain the black case, TrackPoint, and fine keyboard as major selling points. (See the ThinkPad's evolution at Lenovo's archive.)

PC World recognized the ThinkPad's significance right away: The product won a World Class award in 1993. In 2004 it became the first -- and to date, only--product inducted into the World Class Hall of Fame.

4. Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)

In 1984 Apple released the original Macintosh, which, while heavily influenced by the Xerox Star, was a breakthrough personal computer. But its 128KB of memory was so skimpy that the machine was virtually unusable. The company really hit the ball out of the park in 1986 with the Macintosh Plus (see the specs of this Apple model and others at Apple-History.com).

The $2599 Mac Plus had the same Motorola 68000 processor as the original Mac, but it came with a roomy 1MB of RAM and was upgradeable to 4MB of RAM. It supported the brand-new 800KB double-sided floppy-disk format, and was the first Mac with a SCSI port for fast data transfer to and from an external hard drive. Like earlier Macs, its cute beige all-in-one case housed a monochrome 512-by-342-pixel display and the 3.5-inch floppy drive. It also came with matching beige input devices: a sturdy keyboard with a numeric keypad connected by a coiled cord, and a boxy, rectangular mouse.

Apple sold the Mac Plus until 1990, making it the longest-selling Mac model ever. By then it had received cult notoriety via a cameo in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Today, working Mac Plus models sell on eBay for about $25. Nonworking models have found an entirely different afterlife: They've been reincarnated as fish tanks.

3. Xerox 8010 Information System (1981)

As Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely have so many computers owed so much to such a flop. The flop in question is Xerox's 8010 Information System (better known as the Star), the computer that commercialized many of the breakthroughs invented in the company's legendary PARC research labs and first seen in the Alto computer (which was never sold as a commercial product).

Announced in 1981 and shipped in 1982, the Star had a graphical user interface with what-you-see-is-what-you-get graphics and a desktop metaphor (which, as documented at the DigiBarn computing museum, still look impressive today). It used a mouse, a device that was so unfamiliar that Xerox's documentation also called it a "hand-held pointer." It had built-in ethernet networking, and could work with "a 12-ppm laser printer that was three-fourths the size of a washing machine," says Dave Curbow, who joined the Star team as a software engineer in 1983. "There were way too many firsts to enumerate."

It also had a hefty price tag -- $16,500 per unit--that was just the beginning, since the whole idea was that a business would outfit itself with multiple networked workstations, servers, and peripherals. "You couldn't buy one machine and do anything," Curbow explains.

Given that the notion of buying even a single small computer was so new at the time, it's not startling that Xerox had trouble selling companies on the Star. A couple of years later, Apple's far cheaper, Xerox-influenced $2495 Macintosh found more success. And over time, virtually every one of Xerox's out-there ideas became a core part of the everyday computing experience.

2. Compaq Deskpro 386 (1986)

For the first few years of the IBM PC-compatible era, the industry had one undisputed leader -- Big Blue itself. Then an odd thing happened: Intel introduced the powerful 80386 CPU, its first 32-bit processor, and it was Compaq, not IBM, that brought a 386 PC to market before anyone else.

The Deskpro 386's $6499 starting price wasn't as sky-high as it sounds today considering that decent configurations of IBM's AT cost at least $5000 and its high-end RT usually topped $16,000. With a 32-bit bus and 16-MHz clock speed, "on CPU performance alone the Deskpro 386 inhabits another league," PC World wrote at the time.

In 1986 it wasn't a given that a next-generation PC would run previous-generation software out of the box; the IBM RT, which used a RISC CPU, didn't. And so the fact that the Deskpro ran DOS, Windows, Lotus 1-2-3, and other major applications perfectly was as much of a selling point as the fact it did so with blazing speed.

The Deskpro 386 wasn't just one of the most powerful, most popular PCs of its time -- it was also compelling proof that the PC platform was far bigger than any one company.

Number 1. Apple II (1977)

The Apple II wasn't the first personal computer, or the most advanced one, or even the best-selling model of its age. But in many ways it was The Machine That Changed Everything. On all four of our criteria -- Innovation, Impact, Industrial Design, and Intangibles -- it was such a huge winner that it ended up as our Greatest PC of All Time.

The 8-bit system came with 4KB of memory, expandable to 48KB. It used a cassette rather than a disk for storage. It cost $1200, about twice the base price of its two biggest competitors, the Tandy TRS-80 Model I and the Commodore PET 2001. It couldn't even display lowercase letters (in the first several years of its existence, anyway). Yet it packed more pure innovation than any other early computer, and was the first PC that deserved to be called a consumer electronics device.

Born out of the Home Brew Computer Club by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs's tiny Apple Computer in 1977, the Apple II was the company's second PC, but it boasted more than its share of firsts: It was the first color PC (you could even use it with a television), the first to be easily expandable by users, the first to integrate BASIC programming, and the first to run the VisiCalc spreadsheet -- proving that these new boxes had a place in business.

Perhaps its greatest innovation was its design. Jobs wanted the machine to look at home on people's desktops, so he insisted that the Apple II have a sleek look, as opposed to the sheet-metal-and-exposed-wire appearance of most other early PCs. The machine's coolness factor -- an Apple trademark to this day -- was as important to its long-term success as Wozniak's inventive engineering was.

And we do mean long-term: From the original Apple II model that debuted at the first West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977 to the discontinuation of the final iteration of the IIe in December 1993 (outlasting the 16-bit IIGS model that was introduced years after it), more than 2 million Apple II-family PCs had been produced. The Apple II line, well documented at Steven Weyhrich's Apple II History site, kept the company going through the Apple Lisa debacle and other turbulent events of the 1980s. By the middle of that decade, though, Apple had turned its attention to that other world-beater, the Macintosh Plus (number 4 on our list). But it was the Apple II that put the personal in the nascent personal computer industry. The rest is history.

I didn't own the Apple II; I waited for one of its successors, the Apple IIe, a big, big step up from the very first Apple II. My Apple IIe came with a color screen, a floppy drive, and an 80-column display instead of the original's 40-column display. I have fond memories of using the Apple IIe to index and abstract tech articles, although I could fit only four records on each 5.25-inch floppy, which meant I had to carry stacks and stacks of floppies between home and office. I also remember having a love-hate relationship with the integrated keyboard: Its stiff keys made it a pain to use, sometimes literally.

Copyright © 2006 PC World Communications, Inc.

A Wonderfully Written Obit

Final out of Elden Auker's perfect game love story

By Wright Thompson, Senior Writer, ESPN.com

A great love story ends today.

For 73 years, Elden and Mildred Auker were married, inseparable. Their romance was the stuff of paperback novels and Meg Ryan movies. When he won a World Series game or struck out Babe Ruth, she cheered. When she got sick late in life, he rubbed her feet. As they grew old, they'd part with, "You know I've always loved you," just in case.

On Wednesday afternoon, in Vero Beach, Fla., their final goodbye arrives. Mildred is burying the man she met in 1932, the night before college graduation. Seven decades later, he could still describe it in perfect detail. It was the night two empty lives became full.

They were seniors at Kansas State then, the depression ravaging their region. The star athlete, a three-sport All-American, he'd been voted Joe College. A campus beauty -- you should see a picture of Mildred Purcell from back then -- she was voted Betty Coed. For their final dance, she took a date. Elden went stag.

At the dance, Auker eased up smooth and invited her to an after party. Mildred, who lived with her parents in Manhattan, Kan., trotted them out as an excuse. Her mom, she explained, wouldn't think it proper if one boy picked her up and a different one dropped her off.

Auker wouldn't be denied, as he detailed in his autobiography. He found a phone and dialed up Mildred's mom. Of course, Mrs. Purcell knew the name Elden Auker. Every man, woman and child in the state of Kansas knew that name. Plus, he and Mildred's brother were in the same fraternity. She knew him well enough to trust him. He figured he had a shot.

"Sorry to wake you … " he began.

He asked if, you know, maybe he could bring Mildred home after they went to grill some burgers and weenies. Mildred's mother said yes.

So Elden proudly walked back to Mildred, and told her the news.

"You what?!" she exclaimed. "Did you wake her up?"

Elden said yes.

The next year, they married, his daddy buying the ring. They spent three nights in Kansas City on their honeymoon. Afterward, he chased his baseball dreams. Later, he'd become somewhat famous as the last living man to strike out Babe Ruth. He and the Babe were golfing buddies. But to think he was merely a Trivial Pursuit answer is to cheapen his career. He retired with a 130-101 record. He threw 126 complete games. Men were tougher then.

He knew the giants. Ted Williams was a dear friend. In 1939, he playfully grabbed Lou Gehrig, and the slugger collapsed in his arms. No one knew he was sick then. Two years later, Gehrig was gone. One by one, all his friends died. Auker was the last living member of the 1935 Detroit Tigers World Series champions.

After baseball, he became CEO of a company. He met captains of industry, became friends with President Ford. In the eyes of his family, though, the greatest act of his life was the final one.

"She took care of him when he was in baseball," grandson Saarin Auker says, "and when he retired and she started to get feeble, he completely changed. He pretty much focused on the care and well-being of his wife."

Two years ago, they lost almost everything in Hurricane Ivan. It tore apart the house they'd loved on Sailfish Road in Vero Beach, Fla. It waterlogged much of his baseball memorabilia. His reaction told a story: Weeks after the storm, he hadn't even bothered to go through his stuff. He was too busy making sure Mildred was doing OK, making sure she was comfortable in the new place he'd found for them. He seemed in great health. The staff at their apartment complex marveled at this amazing man, and at the Aukers' amazing love.

He rubbed her head. Every night, she fell asleep in his lap. He'd talk to her, tell her to be brave.

"Grandma is a real tough lady," Saarin says. "She could pull the prickers off a rose bush. She was an old Kansas girl. She was a strong woman. She used to say, 'Gimme a pill and I'd take it now,' and granddad would say, 'You stop talking like that.' They really lived for each other."

Auker became a source of wisdom, to his family and beyond. He could be counted on for a lucid opinion on everything from baseball's current steroid scandal to marriage.

"Never go to bed without telling your wife you love her," 38-year-old Saarin remembers. "'Never go to bed angry.' He'd tell me, 'A man has never been shot while doing the dishes, so always do the dishes.' He had all these little sayings he'd always tell me. It's a selfish reason, but I wish he'd have stayed longer. I could have learned so much from him."

About two weeks ago, Auker took a bad turn. They checked him into the hospital. His heart was failing. He was shuttled between several facilities as they searched for answers. Even as the doctors planned and plotted, Auker seemed to understand that his time was short. He told his grandson, "I don't see myself leaving this place."

Still, he seemed to be getting better. Last Wednesday night, he watched a Tigers game. He rarely missed them. The Tigers won; he was so happy. Two days later, early on Friday morning, the family got the call. They'd better get there quick.

Elden Auker was dying.

Saarin stood by his bedside. His father, Jim, went to get Mildred. When they got back, Elden had passed. He was 95.

Jim and Mildred came down the hall. Saarin met them.

"She didn't know that he had passed," he says. "We didn't know if we wanted her to see him in that condition, on the final day, on the final morning. She saw him and was overwhelmed with grief and she used a few expletives and wanted to leave. She was like, 'I want to go home.'"

Now, almost eight decades after he asked her out at a dance, Betty Coed is burying her Joe College. Mildred Auker still has that ring his daddy bought, but she doesn't have Elden any more. She's burying him today, and then she'll go home.

"She sits in the spot that grandpa used to sit in," Saarin says. "It's gonna take some time."

Copyright 2006 ESPN.com

This will happen again

Attention all half-educated idiot reactionary parents: you are harming your children if you do not have them immunized.

Outbreak of Measles In 2005 Shows Risk Of Refusing Vaccines

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY, The Wall Street Journal
August 3, 2006; Page D6

A federal study tied a measles outbreak in Indiana last year to parents who didn't immunize their home-schooled children because of their concerns about vaccine safety. The study, by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, illustrated the risks associated with persistent public suspicions that vaccines have dangerous side effects, including autism. The bulk of major scientific research has found these concerns to be groundless, though studies continue.

Despite the near-elimination of measles in the U.S., 34 cases occurred in Indiana in May 2005, in the largest U.S. outbreak in nine years. In the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, the authors -- who work for the CDC's National Center for Immunization -- said the outbreak originated with a 17-year-old girl who visited an orphanage in Romania on a church mission. Measles is common there. The day after she returned to the U.S., the girl attended a church gathering of 500 people, starting the outbreak.

Once a common childhood disease in the U.S, measles is characterized by an itchy rash and fever, and sometimes causes pneumonia, encephalitis and death. World-wide there are 30 million cases a year causing 454,000 deaths, the World Health Organization estimates.

According to the study, the church had no doctrinal opposition to vaccination. But the church's minister estimated that 10% of the members refused vaccination because of media reports that associated vaccines with autism. Measles vaccinations in the U.S. don't contain thimerasol, a form of mercury that has raised most of the vaccination concerns.

All but one of the patients who contracted measles were church members, and 82% were school-aged, 20 of whom were home-schooled. Most of the victims lived in four households.

Measles vaccinations cover typically 98% of schoolchildren by sixth grade. According to the government's most recent statistics, there were 27 cases among U.S. residents in 2004; 56 in 2003; 44 in 2002; 116 in 2001 and 86 cases in 2000.

In a commentary accompanying the study, Kim Mulholland, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said further outbreaks will occur in industrialized countries as long as parents "respond to spurious claims about the risks of vaccine by refusing to vaccinate their infants."

Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.