Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/02/14

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Subject: [Leica] The History of the Personal Computer
From: richard at richardmanphoto.com (Richard Man)
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:18:42 -0800
References: <F6A063A0-9A6E-42B6-B562-2C90ECFD8196@acm.org> <ECF45563-C9D8-454D-B57F-0FEFF7E5C4FB@frozenlight.eu>

'85 was the 286, was it called the XT? "Blazingly" fast, for some
definition of blazingly.




On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at 
frozenlight.eu>wrote:

> Thanks for an interesting lesson. I do remember the 1984 commercial; it
> was also the year of another vintage commercial, Where is the beef?!
>
> You have a typo in your text, the IBM PC was introduced in 1981, not 1985
> (as you also imply in the previous paragraph). I remember buying my first
> PC, a clone of the PC, in 1984 or 1985, a huge investment for a graduate
> student. The following year, I upgraded the computer by replacing one of
> the floppy drives with a 10 MB hard disk, another big investment.
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
>
> YNWA
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 14, 2013, at 11:30 PM, Herbert Kanner wrote:
>
> > People often ask:  "What was the first personal computer?" That is a
> futile query; it depends too much on the definition of personal computer, a
> definition that can be quite flexible. So what I'm going to cover here are
> the personal computers that had a significant effect on the future.
> >
> > First is the Altair, circa 1975. It was advertised as a $400 kit in
> Popular Electronics magazine and the company in Albuquerque, MITS, was
> swamped with orders.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002888.jpg.html
> >
> > Two young squirts, Bill Gates and Paul Allen phoned MITS and said they
> had a Basic (programming language) interpreter for the Intel 8080 chick
> what was its "brain". They actually had not even started programming the
> interpreter, but fortunately for their enterprise, MITS told them that it
> would be about a month before they actually had an assembled and working
> kit.
> > When Paul Allen flew to Albuquerque and demonstrated the interpreter,
> typing "Print 2+2" and getting back "4" the MITS people were astounded; it
> was the first time they had actually seen their computer do anything.
> >
> > Here is a picture of the Altair. Until the the programs enabling it
> enabling it to read paper tape and use a keyboard are loaded, it had to be
> programming one bit at a time using the toggle switches on the front, and
> until it had the program for driving a printer, results had to be read one
> bit at a time from those lights on the front. It was clearly originally
> intended as a toy for a hobbyist.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002887.jpg.html
> >
> > The effect on the future was: Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed MITS to
> use their interpreter and created a company named Micro-Soft, later to be
> renamed Microsoft.
> >
> > Next is the Apple 1, circa 1976. Steve Wozniak built one for his
> personal use, showed it off at the Homebrew Computer Club, and his buddy,
> Steve Jobs, decided they could make some money from it. He beat the bushes
> and found a store called The Byte Shop in Mountain View, CA that was
> willing to take fifty of them at $500 each and mark them up 1/3, to an
> unrounded price of $666.66. The Steves were under the illusion that all
> they had to supply was a printed circuit board and a bag of parts. The Byte
> Shop disillusioned them and a frantic assembly and testing operation
> ensued. The printed card in front of the artifact is therefore erroneous,
> and I'm waiting for the Museum to update it. The company, Apple Computer,
> was created at that time. The user still had to furnish a keyboard and a
> television set as the monitor.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002890.jpg.html
> >
> > The Apple 2 appeared one year later. You can already see the fine hand
> of Steve Jobs sculpting the external appearance of the device. In the first
> version, cassette tape was the medium for loading programs, but later
> versions provided an operating system for floppy disks. Two years later,
> 1979, Dan Bricklin and Bob Franskton market the first spread sheet,
> Visicalc. It was so appealing that Apple salesmen could walk into a
> business establishment with an Apple 2 under their arm, demonstrate
> Visicalc, and the proprietor would be sufficiently impressed to buy the
> computer. My personal opinion is that this success may have been what
> persuaded IBM to produce the IBM PC in 1981; they realized that such
> devices were than a toy and that there could be serious market for them.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002895.jpg.html
> >
> >
> > In 1985, IBM introduced the first model of the PC. To a certain extent,
> their heart was not entirely in it. All IBM equipment, prior and since, was
> completely manufactured by IBM: hardware, software, the lot. But the PC was
> an exception. The computer chips came from Intel. The operating system came
> from Microsoft, which bought it from Seattle Software. Except for the
> physical box, the only IBM contribution was the software for communication
> with a floppy disk, known as "BIOS" for Basic Input Output System.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002897.jpg.html
> >
> > Who can forget the amazing Super Bowl commercial that introduced the
> Macintosh in 1984. Here is a picture of the original Macintosh model. It's
> screen was monochrome and didn't even have gray scale; it could just draw
> fine lines with remarkable resolution.
> > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002900_001.jpg.html
> >
> >
> > Herbert Kanner
> > kanner at acm.org
> > 650-326-8204
> >
> > Question authority and the authorities will question you.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Leica Users Group.
> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>



-- 
// richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>


Replies: Reply from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] The History of the Personal Computer)
In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] The History of the Personal Computer)
Message from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] The History of the Personal Computer)