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IBM’s became the ‘de facto’ standard for PCs and all manufacturers stated that their machines were ‘IBM compatible’.

But there was a major problem.

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Now standards could be developed so that they could all use the same software, share the same disks and use files created on the others.

All of these computers had different operating systems and often machine specific components.

Software designed for one computer would not work on any of the others and often peripherals e.g. printers had to be made for each type.

Professional Standards

Text and graphic files created on one computer could not be used by any of the others and often they could not even read disks (or audio tape) formatted and written on the others.

What were needed were...

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Eventually most of these computers went out of use leaving the Apple Mackintosh and the IBM PC.

It was a very exciting time.