Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/02/15

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Subject: [Leica] The History of the Personal Computer
From: frank.dernie at btinternet.com (FRANK DERNIE)
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:57:07 +0000 (GMT)
References: <F6A063A0-9A6E-42B6-B562-2C90ECFD8196@acm.org> <1360941460.62556.YahooMailNeo@web125001.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Yes, but Tandy only has had a perfunctory presence outside the USA.
Here in the UK the BBC personal computer was the one to have. I imagine 
other countries had their own "Tandy" too, but I don't know what they were.
Apple were available in the UK from the Apple II, I used one at Universtity.
FD



>________________________________
> From: Bill Clough <bill_clough at yahoo.com>
>To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> 
>Sent: Friday, 15 February 2013, 15:17
>Subject: Re: [Leica] The History of the Personal Computer
> 
>Herbert--
>
>? ?There is something here. I often see this same history and, always, the 
>Radio Shack TRS-80 is left out, which is unfortunate, considering that any 
>town large enough to have a Dairy Queen has a Radio Shack.
>
>? ?I was Tandy's first computer instructor--teaching hundreds of people 
>application programs and the BASIC language. I did this for five years. If 
>you bought an Apple computer in those days, the instruction book was 
>mimeographed with the first sentence saying to turn on the computer and 
>type in CALL and then giving a register.
>
>? ?Meanwhile, owners of Tandy computers had professionally printed 
>instruction books that also were textbooks, beginning with LEVEL 1 BASIC, 
>followed by LEVEL II and DISK BASIC. I averaged a class a day, including 
>evening classes and Saturday classes, and usually filled all the 32 seats. 
>Yet the Tandy machine, based on the Z-80 chip, still is tarnished with the 
>label "Trash-80."
>
>? ?Tandy's mistake, of course, was to bind their users to the TRS operating 
>system. Across the patio from the radio shack computer store in Dallas 
>where I worked, IBM opened a store to sell its PC, which was open source.
>
>? ?The rest is history.
>
>? ?I am, in no way, trying to diminish Apple's role in the PC market. I'm 
>typing this on an Apple. But Tandy was there, too, and its significance, 
>sadly, seems to be ignored.
>
>Bill Clough
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org>
>To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> 
>Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 4:30 PM
>Subject: [Leica] The History of the Personal Computer
>
>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
>
>
>


In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] The History of the Personal Computer)
Message from bill_clough at yahoo.com (Bill Clough) ([Leica] The History of the Personal Computer)