7 Classic Home PC Follow-Ups That Were Never Released

Deep within any thriving consumer electronics company, you'll find unreleased prototypes—new ideas, upgraded older concepts, and successor products in the pipeline. The same was true of the most famous PC companies during the golden age of the home computer, including Apple, Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, Mattel, and Tandy.

During the 1970s and 80s, these companies developed their own signature platforms, such as the Apple II and the Commodore 64. They proved successful, but that didn't keep the companies from developing machines that played off those earlier successes. For economic reasons, many follow-up machines never saw the light of day beyond the prototype stage.

In the slideshow ahead, we'll peel back the curtain of history, and take a look at a handful of these upgraded, next-gen home PC follow-ups that never made it out of the gates. Along the way, you may find yourself wondering, as I did, about an alternate timeline of history where some of these computers actually made it to market. Sure, they would not have changed the fortunes of the companies involved, but they sure would have made neat collectibles for us old computer aficionados to play with.

1. Texas Instruments TI-99/8

Perhaps you're familiar with the TI-99/4A, a classic low-cost home computer released in 1981 that proved fairly popular in the United States. Texas Instruments planned a follow-up called the TI-99/8 two years later that shipped with 64K RAM, built-in Pascal programming language, a larger keyboard, an integrated speech synthesizer, and more. It never made it to market, getting the axe in October 1983 during a tough time in the home computer market.

(Photo: Texas Instruments)

2. Apple IIgs "Mark Twain"

In 1986, Apple released a vastly improved entry in its classic Apple II computer series called the Apple IIgs. It included a 16-bit CPU, better sound and graphics, but was backward-compatible with previous 8-bit Apple II software. In 1991, Apple almost released an improved Apple IIgs, codenamed "Mark Twain," that would have included a built-in 40MB SCSI hard drive and a 3.5-inch floppy drive. At the last minute, Apple pulled the plug and never put the improved IIgs into production, preferring to focus on its Macintosh platform instead.

(Photo: Apple2History.com)

3. Mattel Aquarius II

Toy maker Mattel is historically best-known for its Barbie and He-Man toys, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it dabbled in video games (the Intellivision, 1979), and the Aquarius personal computer (1983). Developed by British electronics firm Radofin to meet a rock-bottom, family-friendly price point, the Aquarius skimped on many features: it shipped with a clumsy rubber chiclet keyboard and very little RAM. The Aquarius II sought to rectify those problems, but the video game market crashed and chased Mattel out of the business. Under its own label, Radofin released the Aquarius II in exceedingly limited quantities in Europe (only a handful are known to exist), but it never made it to the United States.

(Photo: Old-Computers.com)

4. Atari 1450XLD

Before the 1983/84 American video game market meltdown, Warner-owned Atari was planning several new additions to its Atari 8-bit home computer series, including the 1450XLD seen here. As the intended flagship of the line, the 1450XLD was to be similar to the released 1200XL but with an integrated (and faster) disk drive, a built-in modem, and speech synthesizer circuitry. Ultimately, Warner sold its home game and computer division to Jack Tramiel, and the XLD never saw release.

(Photo: Atari)

5. Tandy Color Computer 4

Boisy G. Pitre and Bill Loguidice, authors of CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer, discovered this mock-up of a Tandy Color Computer 4 just a few years ago when interviewing a Tandy veteran. Tandy released the last model of its popular Color Computer line, the CoCo 3, in 1986. Apparently, this would-be follow-up is just a hollow shell, but it looks like there is enough room in its expanded case for an internal hard drive and a 3.5-inch disk drive. It's exciting stuff that makes you wonder, "What if?"

(Photo: Bill Loguidice)

6. Atari MicroBox Falcon

In 1993, Atari released its last computer, the Falcon030. It was a powerful and capable machine for its time, but it shipped in an older, ST-style case that integrated the keyboard with the computer in one plastic shell. One attempt to fix this was the MicroBox, a planned successor unit that would have detached the keyboard and included a built-in CD-ROM drive and three expansion slots. Not long after the MicroBox prototype, Atari decided to focus on its Atari Jaguar console and canceled development on all of its home computer systems.

(Photo: Curt Vendel / Atari Museum)

7. Commodore 65

In 1990, as its legendary Commodore 64 platform was winding down, Commodore developed a potential follow-up machine (not its first -- consider the Commodore 128) called the Commodore 65. The C65 included a faster CPU, more RAM, better graphics, better sound, and a nifty built-in 3.5-inch disk drive, but was not fully backward-compatible with the C64 line. Apparently, Commodore produced around 50 prototypes of the fully functional machine, but the C65 never made it to market. Instead, Commodore chose to focus its resources on its next-gen Amiga line of computers. And the rest is history.

(Photo: Old-Computers.com)