The Hottest-Selling Hardware

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TRS-80 Model III ($999). Back in 1978, Radio Shack, Commodore and Apple had the field to themselves, and Tandy-Radio Shack, with its nationwide chain of retail outlets, had more of the field than anyone else. A sturdy word-and number-crunching machine, the "Trash-80," as it is affectionately known, seemed to have a lock on the corner computer market. By year's end there were 300,000 Model Ills in place. But the company has been overtaken by less stodgy competitors, and last year Tandy's share of the mid-range market fell from 13% to 10%.

$1,000 10 $2,000

Apple II Plus ($1,330). The hardy bestseller of the late '70s is also the hardy bestseller of the early '80s: 700,000 have been sold; 270,000 in 1982 alone. With so many cheaper and more sophisticated machines available, why does the Apple II still hold the biggest slice of the $1,000-to-$2,000 pie? Software. More programs are available for this six-year-old machine than for any other single computer, some 16,000 in all. Also more user groups, more space in the computer magazines, more plug-in expansion units, more peripheral devices. It used to be that when something was done on a microcomputer, it was done first on an Apple II. Today IBM, Commodore and Atari are changing that.

IBM Personal Computer ($1,565). The top executive's Apple, this is the machine that put the stamp of corporate legitimacy on the computer revolution, and it quickly set industry standards in everything from operating systems to its no-nonsense instruction manuals. Although other machines have sold in greater quantities, the IBM is the computer of the year. Introduced in August 1981, nearly 200,000 were shipped in the past twelve months, winning it 17% of the market for mid-range machines. Already 1,000 programs are available for the PC, including games. Though IBM discourages using its machine as a toy (it charges $300 extra for color graphics), software programmers are busily translating all manner of playtime activities to run on the IBM PC.

Osborne 1 ($1,795). The first of the sewing machine-size portable computers, the Osborne 1 squeezes into a 24-lb. package a video monitor, a pair of disc drives and the two programs indispensable to businessmen: financial forecasting and word processing. Despite its eye-straining 5-in. screen, 55,000 Osborne 1 models were sold in 1982, bringing the total number shipped to nearly 100,000.

Over $2,000

Only growing small businesses and big corporate clients are likely to go after these computers, known in the trade as "professional work stations" and designed to hang at the branches of a network of similar machines. Price tags range as high as $10,000; Altos, Corvus, Control Data, Cromemco, Digital Equipment, Fortune, Hewlett-Packard, Nippon Electric, North Star, Olivetti, TeleVideo, Toshiba, Vector, Victor, Xerox and Zenith are among the biggest names in this upscale but increasingly crowded field. Even proletarian Apple is joining the crowd with its long-awaited Apple IV (code-named Lisa), due to be unveiled in mid-January. Lisa's probable price range: somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000. The Apple V (code-named Mackintosh), on the other hand, due out in mid-1983 and priced around $2,000, could be a true mass-market machine.

—By Philip Faflick. Reported by Robert T. Grieves/New York