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

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Subject: [Leica] The History of the Personal Computer
From: kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:31:17 -0800
References: <F6A063A0-9A6E-42B6-B562-2C90ECFD8196@acm.org> <ECF45563-C9D8-454D-B57F-0FEFF7E5C4FB@frozenlight.eu>

Thanks for mentioning the typo. 1981 is correct and, in fact, is the date in 
the notes on my iPod for one of the tours I give at the Museum.

Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.




On Feb 14, 2013, at 10:01 PM, Nathan Wajsman 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.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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