[Leica] The History of the Personal Computer

[kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)]

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.