PC World: 10 WORST PC's of all time

PC World said:

PC World - 10 WORST PC's of all time

10. Dell Dimension 4600 (2003)
9. New Internet Computer (2000)
8. eMachines eTower 366c (1999)
7. Commodore VIC 20 (1981)
6. Texas Instruments TI-99/4 (1979)
5. IBM PS/1 (1990-1994)
4. Apple III (1980-1984)
3. Coleco Adam (1983)
2. Mattel Barbie PC (1999-2000)
1. Packard Bell PC's...all of them :black: (1986-1996)

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How many of us had some of the stinkers on this list?
:black:

Source: PC World

i totally had a packard bell

mmm interesting.

Dang - the VIC20 wasn't a bad machine at its price point (that's because there was very little else that was that cheap) and they sold a ton of them. Certainly the C=64 dwarfed the VIC20 in terms of capability later on, but in its time, the VIC was not a bad little machine. But I digress....

I currently have a Dimension 4400. I wonder what made the 4600 so awful? My 4400 has given me six years of excellent service. I still use it on a daily basis.

Packard Bell, lol.

Personally, I use Turbo Tax on my Barbie PC every year. It has been nothing but a pleasure to work with.

Most of the Packard Bells were a NIGHTMARE! I had to repair them for people. They got caught using used parts in their machines. Amazing company.

On the Dell 4600, I think that was the system with a load of Power Supply failures. I worked on one a few months back where the Power Supply blew in Smoke and took out the motherboard.

Barbie PC????

I haven't owned any of them, but I did own an NEC, but I think it was before they were Packard Bell. A friend of mine in high school had a Packard Bell. I think it died within a year, either because it was junk or because he tinkered with it too much.

I had an NEC before it was PB. It wasn't a bad computer, just didn't last very long!

Man, I had 3 of 'em.
TI-99, VIC 20 & a PB. Maybe those are why I gave up on off-the-shelf systems.
Traded the TI-99 for an extemely comfortable oversized armchair I still have.
Am sure the VIC and PB ended up where they belonged.

There WERE some very good Packard Bell models, but a lot of them were one big problem and very unreliable. The ones I am talking about are the older ones, way before NEC.

I tried to edit my original message but there is no edit button for some reason!

Yo my very first computer was a packard bell! Can't remember what kind though, but it was a 66 mghz computer, with like 30 megs of storage. But it had not one, but TWO cd rom drives. Talk about big pimpin!

I had number 10 and number 8

My first DOS machine (which became a Windows 3.1 machine when I got my hands on it) was a Packard-Bell SX16. It wasn't a bad machine at all, and was in service with my ex-inlaws until about 3 years ago.

The VIC-20 was an awesome machine. I have photos around here somewhere of a Mexican TV station that used a VIC-20 for its text channels. The first computer I owned was a C=64, which kicked you-know-what.

I was working for a catalog-computer supply company at the time Coleco was selling the Adam. The Adam is an easy target, but Coleco sold tons of them, at least based on the people who called us for supplies.

At the same company, we used to laugh when people called up who had Apple /// computers. We'd always hear stories that involved smoke.

Like was already stated, the Commodore Vic-20 was not all that bad and opened the door for the 64 later. I still have a Vic-20 and 64 somewhere. I used them till I got my Atari 130XE with SpartaDos then used it till the Atari ST, Amiga and Mac Plus. The Vic-20 could do some things that nothing else in the home could do at that time. I was just frustrated at the time with the small amount of Memory.

dtravis7 said:

Like was already stated, the Commodore Vic-20 was not all that bad and opened the door for the 64 later. I still have a Vic-20 and 64 somewhere. I used them till I got my Atari 130XE with SpartaDos then used it till the Atari ST, Amiga and Mac Plus. The Vic-20 could do some things that nothing else in the home could do at that time. I was just frustrated at the time with the small amount of Memory.

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Thank you for vindicating the old VIC-20. Granted, it was a toy computer more than anything else, but compared to its contemporaries at that price point (was there any other computer you could buy at K-Mart for $100?), it was a decent machine.

I had a Packard Bell and the eMachine on that list. All the rest of the PCs i've owned were either custom built or HP/Compaq. The eMachine was OK. The Packard Bell started smoking when my dad went to use it.

HP/Compaq makes crappy laptops. My HP fried last year, and it was about a year old. my friend's compaq is almost 2 years old and has gone though 4 power adapters.

didn't have any of them.
closest was a dell dimension xps d300, but that was a great machine at the time, and a tank that withstood all sorts of upgrades and abuse. afaik, the guy i sold it too is still running it (it's about 10 years old now).

what should be on there are the HP zd7000 and zd8000 notebooks that tend to grenade their own video cards from the insane amount of heat they generate from the very fast desktop PIV proc they put in them.

i had a packard bell with windows 3.1 :black:
i didnt have a problem with it
i guess i was 6 or 7 so my dad would know about any problems
i remember upgrading an OS for the first time... windows 95

mikeyman said:

i had a packard bell with windows 3.1
i didnt have a problem with it
i guess i was 6 or 7 so my dad would know about any problems
i remember upgrading an OS for the first time... windows 95

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I had one of them too
Was a 486 DX2/66 - Not much went wrong with it till the windows 95 upgrade:
It was never the same again. I had some fun blowing up the capacitors and then chucked it in the skip. Kept the ISA cards (modem and sound card) and the speakers, but don't think I'll see a machine that uses ISA for a long time.

Whoah! My buddy stony! Hiya fella! Sure glad you found us here! It's going to be cool to have you around with us! A big WELCOME to you!!!