 I'm Tom Merritt from Daily Tech News Show with the top 5 biggest home computer flops of the 1980s. Ah, the 80s! A magical time to be a computer user. At least 7 different companies tried to sell a dozen different home computers running incompatible operating systems while offering minimal tech support. A lovely time indeed. But the life of a home computer is brutish and short and possibly sometimes nasty. Many of these home computers disappeared from store shelves in less than two years after they appeared. So, in an effort to ensure that history is not forgotten, here are the top 5 home computer flops from the 1980s. At number 5, IBM's PC Jr. In 1982, Big Blue was riding high on the success of the IBM PC, the IBM Personal Computer, which was launched the year before. But although the PC was great for bringing work home, it wasn't great with games or helping with the kids' homework. Enter the PC Jr. in 1984. It had enhanced graphics, better sound, it used cartridges and had joystick ports, just like that Atari 2600 your kids loved. Too bad the IR wireless chiclet keyboard was hard to type on, and oddly, it wasn't always compatible with your PC software. Sales disappointed and IBM discontinued it a year later. Coming in at number 4, Apple's Lisa. Before the Mac, there was Lisa. Steve Jobs saw the Xerox Alto, and in 1978, Apple began development on a personal computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse, just like the Alto. Five years later, in 1983, Apple launched the Lisa. Now, sure, it sold for the price of a new car, and had limited software availability. And unreliable floppy disks. And underwhelming performance. But hey, 10,000 people bought one anyway over its two years of availability. By comparison, the original Mac sold 70,000 units in six months. Up to number 3, the Apple 3. Yes, 3. The Apple 3 was supposed to do for business what the Apple II had done for education. It featured a faster processor, better audio, higher resolution display capability, and a keyboard that had upper and lower case character support. But it also came with stability issues because of overheating. Its poor market performance forced Apple to delay the retirement of the Apple II. But it wasn't a total loss. Elements of its sauce operating system found its way into the Macintosh file system, ProDOS, and the Apple IIGS operating system. Sliding in at number 2, Coleco Atom. Toy company Coleco had a success with its game console ColecoVision. So why not build a home computer on that? In fact, Coleco sold it as an expansion module for the game console, as well as as a standalone version. Everyone could get it. It came with a detachable keyboard, daisy wheel printer, and a CPU unit that held proprietary cassette data drive. It also generated a huge magnetic pulse whenever you turned it on, which would wipe out any cassettes inside those cassette drives. Also, since the power supply was inside the printer, it had to connect the printer to use the computer at all. Coleco discontinued it after two years. And possibly not coincidentally, Coleco filed for bankruptcy in 1988. At number 1, the Mattel Aquarius. Now, you may think this is a familiar story. Toy company has a popular game console, in this case the Intellivision, and wants to build a home computer on top of it. Doesn't sound bad, though. Ran on a Xilog Z80 microprocessor, had a subset of Microsoft basic stored in ROM, and used a cassette tape recorder for data storage. The problem was all its hardware was old. Some people even mocked it as the home computer for the 1970s, in 1983. Mattel discontinued it four months after its introduction. Look, these may be failures, but without failures, you don't have progress. These flops helped force the personal computer industry to make better, cheaper, and more functional computer systems. Flops of the 1980s, we salute you! Hey, if you want more great tech news and info, subscribe to our channel, youtube.com-dailytechnewshow. Get the podcast at dailytechnewshow.com, and if you can, help support us at Patreon, patreon.com-dts. We'll see you there.