Home computer

Home computers are a class of micro computers for the consumer market, built from 1977 to 2000 by companies such as Commodore, Amstrad or Atari.

These computers were cheaper than business computers, mobile and could be connected to a TV as monitor. Peripheral devices as printer, datasette, disk drives or joysticks could be bought subsequently and connected easily. The use of these computer was easier for non-technical users. After powering on the home computer it is ready, without long boot or start-up phases. After starting up you can directly write and start your program.

A home computer has a keyboard and a motherboard with all important prefabricated parts (CPU, RAM, ROM with OS (mostly BASIC), KERNAL and charsets, soundchip, graphic or video chip) and the connectors for the peripheral devices

For the most old home computer exists emulators for using the old software, which is saved in disk images, on the modern computer systems like PC or handhelds.