During the early seasons of Computer Chronicles, Ashton-Tate was one of the Big Three business software companies together with Microsoft and Lotus Development Corporation. Ashton-Tate made its name with dBase II, a database application that quickly became the gold standard in its field. Unfortunately, Ashton-Tate never managed to grow its success beyond its core product, so when later versions of dBase failed to meet customer expectations, the company declined into irrelevancy.

Only about 13 percent of video games published in the United States prior to 2010 remain commercially available today, according to a study published on July 10 by the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF). Phil Salvador, the VGHF’s library director, authored the landmark study, which examined 4,000 classic video games first released on the Commodore 64, Nintendo Game Boy family, and Sony PlayStation 2. Overall, Salvador concluded that legal access to historical titles was “dire” across all software ecosystems and represented a “crisis for the entire medium of video games.”

Apple CEO John Sculley’s quest to extend the Macintosh’s reach in the business market took an important step in November 1987 with the launch of MultiFinder, an extension to the System Software 5 operating system that finally enabled a form of multitasking on the Mac. This gave Apple a jump on IBM’s long-promised multitasking OS/2 by a few weeks. And while the Mac never posed a serious challenge to the IBM PC and its clone army in the overall business market, the combination of MultiFinder with more expandable machines like the Macintosh II helped to cement Apple’s place as the primary alternative microcomputer platform for many business users.

The November 1987 edition of the Computer Chronicles holiday buyers’ guide began with Gary Kildall showing Stewart Cheifet the Sony XV-T600 Picture Computer, a $600 machine that added pictures and titles to home VCR movies. It also came with a small handheld scanner. Kildall demonstrated how you could place the scanner over a black-and-white drawing and digitize the image so it would appear on an attached television screen. The controls on the scanner could then be used to fill in the colors on the image. (You could also use a trackball, Kildall noted.) The color palette appeared on the lower right-hand corner of the television screen. The completed color image was then added on top of some video of a recent trip that Kildall had taken to New York City.

Apple had a few false starts when it came to local area networks in the 1980s. In February 1983, the company announced AppleNet, which it described as a “scaled-down version” of Bob Metcalfe’s Ethernet standard. The idea was that AppleNet would offer a decentralized LAN that didn’t require a full server and could connect up to 128 Apple II, Apple III, or Lisa systems across a distance of up to 2,000 feet. Apple claimed this approach would make its LAN more affordable, with a per-node connection cost of under $500. The trade-off was that AppleNet would be slower than other Ethernet LANs.

Local area networks were a regular topic during early seasons of Computer Chronicles. In a first-season episode from 1983, 3Com’s Ethernet was still “under discussion” as a possible industry networking standard. In 1985, IBM tried–and ultimately failed–to gain control of the standard with Token Ring. Now, with this next look at networking from November 1987, the topic had grown so much in complexity that this would be the first of a two-part series. This first episode focused on networking technology for IBM PCs and compatibles, while the next program addressed the state of LANs on the Macintosh.

Steve Boros managed the Oakland Athletics in 1983 and 1984, and the San Diego Padres in 1986. While he failed to lead either team to a pennant, he still made his mark as one of the first Major League Baseball managers to embrace the use of computers for statistical analysis. Boros appeared in a 1995 Computer Chronicles episode to discuss how he made use of a system built partly on the Apple II to assess player matchups. Although Boros’ role in bringing computers to the A’s was exagerrated in the press, he was a well-liked, well-respected baseball lifer who helped lend credibility to the new technology at a time when it was still not common in most American homes.

The second annual Computer Chronicles episode to focus on the fall COMDEX show in Las Vegas aired in November 1987, just a few days after the event concluded. Back in the San Mateo, California, studio, Stewart Cheifet and George Morrow looked at some video footage recorded on the show floor. Cheifet noted this was the biggest COMDEX ever, with the most exhibitors and attendees. But what went on at the event? Was there any buying or selling actually taking place? Or was it just PR and gawking?

Even as stock markets around the world crashed in October 1987, business owners could still take comfort in the fact that laser printers had finally broken the sub-$2,000 barrier. Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet II printer was now available from some retailers for just $1,795, a significant discount from the original $2,595 list price. And laser printers from smaller companies such as Epson could be had for as little as $1,400.

With that in mind, this next Computer Chronicles episode from November 1987 focused on the latest developments in laser printers. Stewart Cheifet opened the program by showing Gary Kildall some examples of printed documents. Normally you would have to go to a professional printer to get such documents, but these were all printed on a personal computer with a laser printer. Laser printers had become associated with desktop publishing. But was that the only reason to go out and buy one?

Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) was a company often featured on ‘Computer Chronicles’ for its innovative PC compatibles. ZDS was never a major presence in retail, but it enjoyed great success in the government, business, and educational computing sectors throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. But after closing its doors in 1996, the Zenith name effectively disappeared from the American computer landscape and faded into history.

Yet there’s another name–Heathkit–that is still fondly remembered today for its DIY electronic kits dating back to the 1950s. Heathkit was actually the progenitor of Zenith Data Systems. And the story of a how the Heath Company traced its own history back to a pair of airplane crashes that occurred 23 years apart provides an interesting look at how the modern PC industry was shaped by human events that had nothing to do with microprocessors.