First Personal Computers

No one has ever decided what the first personal computer, or "microcomputers" as they were first called, was. Here are a few of the earlier models of computers that were small in size and intended for

Simon

Some cite the Simon as the first personal computer. The Simon was sold as instructions for a simple computer type kit in 1949 for $300, or approximately $2,700 is today's money. The "computer" was very simply and could only understand the numbers 0, 1, and 2. Only about 400 of the plans were ever sold.

Honeywell Kitchen Computer

The Honeywell Kitchen Computer, which was released in 1969, was the first computer that was marketed for home users. It was offered for sale in the Neiman Marcus catalog with promises of making cooking easier. It cost $10,600, or about $62,046.97 in today's money. Thi is about the average salary of an American. However, it had a very small feature set. The only real feature of the Kitchen Computer was the ability to store recipes. It wasn't very good at this as it would take about two weeks to learn how to read and program recipes in binary. Here is a diagram of the Interface from the Honeywell Kitchen Computer as included in the manual: Key: r = Rocker switch 3 = Three-way switch

p = Lighted push button l = Output light (binary, behind dark glass)

|l| |l||l||l| |l||l||l| |l||l||l| |l||l||l| |l||l||l| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 CLEAR |r| |r||r||r| |r||r||r| |r||r||r| |r||r||r|

|r||r||r| |r| SENSE 1 2 3 4 A B OP P/Y M MSTR FETCH P+1 MI STAR

|r||r||r||r| |p||p||p||p||p| |r| |r| |r| |3|SI |p| CLEAR STORE P RUN

OFF | | |___|

ON |___|



Unsurprisingly, there is no record of any of these computers ever being sold.

There is a funny look at how this computer may have been received by a housewive here.

Xerox Alto

The Alto, created in 1973, was never commercially marketed. Nonetheless, it was a very revolutionary machine. The Alto included the first graphical user interface, which was navigating using a mouse, and it included a high-speed ethernet card. These were features that did not become common in other computers for well over a decade.

Without the Alto, we may have never had computers like you are using to view this webpage today. Before the Alto, everything was simply a text interface (or even simpler). 

Altair 8800

The Altair 8800 was first released in 1975. It was released as a kit for hobbyists through the Popular Mechanics magazine. When you assembled the kit, the Altair 8800 required you to program directly into the machine using machine language. It responded only by blinking dots. However, over time extra hardware was developed for the machine including tape readers (that read punched dots in strips of paper) and floppy drives. The Alatair pictured includes an 8" floppy disk drive.

One such hobbyist that saw the Altair 8800 in Popular Mechanics was Bill Gates. Bill Gates showed the article to his friend Paul Allen. After studying the article, they decided to write an operating system for the machine. They sent off to the company who created the machine, MITS, that they would have a version ready to present. Using a mainframe computer, the pair was able to create Alatir Basic, which was Microsoft's first product. (pictured)

While this machine was not the first "personal computer," the Altair was quite popular. Over 400 kits sold within the first year of release. It is also praised by Microsoft fans as well as the company since it where Microsoft started out.

Apple I

Steve Wozniack was an inventor. He made what became the Apple I computer for fun and showed it to some early computer users at a club. His friend Steve Jobs (considered the founder of Apple) suggested that it be sold. Starting in July 1976.

There were several things that truly set the Apple I apart. For one thing, it had a keyboard and monitor. Earlier personal computers like the aforementioned Altair 8800 had no such easy interface. Another difference was that the Apple I was sold mostly assembled (it required a few extra parts) unlike earlier computers that were sold as kits. 

There are currently only about fourty Apple I computers in existance. The computers have been known to sell for as much as $50,000, thus making them a collector's item.

Tandy TRS-80

Radio Shack, under the name brand "Tandy" made several computers in the late seventies and early eighies under the model number TRS-80. The computer sold for about $600 and during its time had more software available than any other personal computer.

The Tandy used a 1.4MHz processor and include 4KB of RAM. It used a version of BASIC, which was the de facto language for personal computers at this time. More advanced programming of the computer required using assembly language.

The TRS 80 started out in a simple terminal design, as is pictured. Later, models were made that resemble a clamshell laptop (virtually all laptops today are of this type) and one that was a PDA type size.

IBM Personal Computer

The IBM Personal Computer (model number 5150) was the first computer to be called and marketed as a "personal computer." However, the term had been informally in use since the time of the aformentioned Xerox Alto. The Computer itself had very little revoulationary. However, it did set the standard for many DOS and Windows computers in the future as far as hardware. The computers are also quite reliable. Many of the computers are still in use by the National Weather Service. The keyboards are still used by many computer enthusists.