What is a microcomputer? Well, you are sitting in front of one. Technically, every PC and every Mac belongs into this category. However, the word is primarily used for those typical home computers of the 70s, 80s and early 90s, the Commodores, Apple ][, Sinclairs, Ataris and many more. And that is what this page is about.
These computers were, in price and power, in a category quite different from the IBM PCs. In 1984, in the UK, most of them cost less than £200 -- maybe one tenth the price of a PC. Their screens had low resolutions, usually only 40 columns of text but could show more colors, and a few even had stereo sound. They usually had Zilog processors whose clock frequencies were never mentioned, and between 16 and 128kB of RAM.
One interesting thing about these bygone systems is that nobody ever complains when you distribute the games and other software written for them. I actually once found a game developer linking to a page where you could download the Apple ][ version of one of their old games. (They were still selling the PC version.)
Of course, the Atari ST does not really belong here. Unlike the other micros, which were always somewhere halfwards between a PC and a game console, this was more on the level of a PC or Mac, it can best be compared withe the Commodore Amiga, which was its main competitor. Atari users and Amiga users liked (and like) to exchange the same kind of compliments Mac and PC users exchanged.
Steem is an Atari STE emulator. It has taken about 2 years to get to its present state where it runs the vast majority of ST software without problems. One of the best features of Steem is that it is very easy to use, almost all its options can be toggled while the emulation is still running to see the effects they have. The usual nightmare of setting up virtual hard drives and finding/switching disk images is a doddle using Steem's disk manager. You can easily set up and use any axis or any button of any joystick supported by Windows to control the ST joysticks or aspects of the emulator itself using Steem's innovative shortcuts feature.
So give Steem a try today and enjoy all the fun of the ST!
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Of course, this does not belong here either, Maybe even less than the Atari. Amigas were produced until 1996 or something, and they cost between £400 and 3000. Guess I'll have to reorganize this page.
The Amiga community is quite large and active. There are many more sites than the few I have listed here. Just enter "Amiga" into the search engine of your choice.
Since March 2003 I own an Amiga 500, complete with two joysticks, mouse and lots of diskettes. I could not try it out yet, since I don't have a matching monitor or TV.