They weren't really late. In many people's minds IBM validated the concept of the PC.

When that happened I'd been working at Tandy (EU version of Radio Shack) for a while and even though we sold computers they were not taken serious until IBM came along and then suddenly we couldn't supply them fast enough.

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spopejoy an hour ago | parent [-]

Was Tandy only EU? In the TRS-80 days the name came up a lot, although maybe just because of the acronym ... 6809E was a good time

	▲	jacquesm an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, that was the first time I had a 'proper' processor to play with. A Dragon 32 (CoCo clone from the UK). I've never seen Tandy used outside of Europe but then again, I had not traveled as much then as now so it's definitely possible they used the brand on other continents as well. I wonder how many trees were cut for those catalogs :)