«

This should be interesting and fun.

What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?

NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!

Good Luck All!!

Poor question. You need to be much more specific about what constitutes a
personal computer and when. Here is a link to a site that attempts to
clarify and answer this question.

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

--
Carlos

"WinXP_Powered" <> wrote in message
news:43f97cf2$0$28055$ m...
> This should be interesting and fun.
>
> What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?
>
> NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!
>
> Good Luck All!!

WinXP_Powered wrote:

> This should be interesting and fun.
>
> What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?
>
> NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!
>
> Good Luck All!!

Define "personal computer". Term is too vague to allow an unambiguous
answer.

IBM claimed in 1957 that the IBM 610 was "IBM's first personal computer" but
by modern standards it was neither personal nor a computer. The Xerox Alto
in 1973 pioneered many of the user interface concepts that go into a
contemporary personal machine and was designed for individiual use but it
was the size of a refrigerator and never offered for sale. The DEC PDP-8
was small enough and inexpensive enough that someone who had a good job and
wanted one really badly could buy one (cost about the same as two Cadillacs
or half a Ferrari or a third of a house), so in that sense it might have
been the first "personal computer".

There were various homebrews in the late '60s--friend of mine who was a tech
at Burroughs was working on one based on TTL when the micros hit--most of
them had names known only to the designer and his close friends--they were
"computers" and they were "personal" but whether you want to count them as
"personal computers" is up to you. The same people who were doing that
were quite capable of cobbling up a microprocessor-based machine when the
micros became available but I don't know of any who did, which doesn't mean
that there weren't any.

The first inexpensive microprocessor-based machine to actually go on the
market was the French Micral, but it didn't do too well. The Scelbi-8 did
a little better, but the first to achieve widespread recognition was the
MITS Altair--unfortunately MITS wasn't prepared for the demand and some
customers are _still_ waiting for the last parts kit to arrive <g>. Still,
the MITS also gave Microsoft their start, so we had an Intel-based micro
running a Microsoft OS (more or less--the BASIC ROM functioned pretty much
as the machine's control program) and aimed at the consumer/hobbyist
market, which means that we have the first machine that is incontrovertibly
a "personal computer" by today's standards.





--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

all in one unit, called it a "green machine" because it had like a 12" green
mono monitor. 5 1/4 floppy with 10mb hard drive and 640kb of ram.


"Spammy Sammy" <> wrote in message
news:1140521867.72340@teuthos...
>
> "WinXP_Powered" <> wrote in message
> news:43f97cf2$0$28055$ m...
> > This should be interesting and fun.
> >
> > What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?
> >
> > NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!
> >
> > Good Luck All!!
>
> The first personal computer was called "Computer". Manufactured by the
> United Federation of Planets and installed aboard the Constitution class
> vessel USS Enterprise, aka NCC-1701, sometime between 2262 and 2264.
> Information regarding it's capabilities are limited due to the classified
> nature of the subject matter however it was based around a Duotronic
> operating system and had a processing speed of approximately 1,204,702
> kiloquads per second.
>
> This computer is classed as personal because in addition to the standard
> displays and data readouts it was equipped with a voice recognition input
> and female voice synthesised output. (Personal note - the voice
synthesiser
> sounded like Martina Navratilova with a cold).
>
>

That was the point of this "fun exercise"--to leave it up to your
interpretation.

As for MY answer, you guessed it right off. I was going to refer to the
blinkenlights.com timeline.

As we can all see from the varied responses here, the interpretation of
"personal computer" is something we can't seem to agree on. If that
makes it a poor question, oh well.

I posted the question so we could take a break from the seriousness of
the rest of this newsgroup and inject a little fun here--not to start an
argument or debate.

Once a techie, always a techie, huh? No wonder they call us GEEKS!! LOL


Carlos Antenna wrote:
> Poor question. You need to be much more specific about what constitutes a
> personal computer and when. Here is a link to a site that attempts to
> clarify and answer this question.
>
> http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml
>
> --
> Carlos
>
> "WinXP_Powered" <> wrote in message
> news:43f97cf2$0$28055$ m...
>
>>This should be interesting and fun.
>>
>>What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?
>>
>>NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!
>>
>>Good Luck All!!
>
>
>

OH, I'm sorry, I didn't read the OP correctly. I thought this was a "what
was everyones first personal computer." Not "what was the first computer."
There were computers that didn't even have hard drives, not to mention those
that used reels. Clearly the computer I posted about wasn't one of the
first it was just the first one I owned!

Sorry for the mix -up


"Barry Watzman" <> wrote in message
news:...
> That came years after the Altair, and since the Altair clearly
> qualifies, isn't the answer.
>
> The real question is whether or not there is any computer prior to the
> Altair that qualifies, and in my view the only possibility is the Mark 8.
>
>
> Mark wrote:
>
> > the first personnal computer ... in real terms was surely the zx80 ...
> >
> > followed by the 1k zx81
> >
> >
> > "Barry Watzman" <> wrote in message
> > news:...
> >
> >>The question is subjective as there is no really good definition of what
> >>constitutes a personal computer.
> >>
> >>The answer that I would say is most correct is that Altair 8800 from
1975.
> >>It clearly qualifies by virtually any reasonable definition, and very
few
> >>if any earlier computers do, but another answer often given is the
> >>"Mark-8" from July of 1974 (a construction project from Radio
Electronics
> >>magazine based on the 800.
> >>
> >>
> >>WinXP_Powered wrote:
> >>
> >>>This should be interesting and fun.
> >>>
> >>>What was the name, manufacturer, and year of the 1st personal computer?
> >>>
> >>>NO, it wasn't the IBM PC 5150 in 1981!
> >>>
> >>>Good Luck All!!
> >
> >
> >

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

> WinXP_Powered wrote:
>>
>> That was the point of this "fun exercise"--to leave it up to your
>> interpretation.
>>
>> As for MY answer, you guessed it right off. I was going to refer to the
>> blinkenlights.com timeline.
>>
>> As we can all see from the varied responses here, the interpretation of
>> "personal computer" is something we can't seem to agree on. If that
>> makes it a poor question, oh well.
>>
>> I posted the question so we could take a break from the seriousness of
>> the rest of this newsgroup and inject a little fun here--not to start an
>> argument or debate.
>>
>> Once a techie, always a techie, huh? No wonder they call us GEEKS!! LOL
>
>
> I am not a GEEK! I have never, ever bit the head off of a live
> chicken while working for a circus, or for that matter, at any other
> time. The term was Nerd when I was growing up.

Pity. A geek gets it done and a nerd doesn't. Or so say the geeks at
Earthlink <eg>.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

> "J. Clarke" wrote:
>>
>
>> Pity. A geek gets it done and a nerd doesn't. Or so say the geeks at
>> Earthlink <eg>.
>
>
> How many years have you repaired computers? Are any of the computers
> you've worked on oddball industrial equipment with little or no
> documentation? What do you know about the Motorola MC68340 series
> CPUs? The Motorola "Exocisor" bus, the Intel "Multibus" Motorola's
> "VME" bus? How about the PC-104 bus? I've troubleshot and repaired all
> of them, along with some mainframe and minicomputer equipment. My
> server rack was a NCR 2600 minicomputer, and I tested and certified the
> embedded controller in one of the communications systems aboard the
> International Space Station.
>
> I am back in the computer repair game after becoming 100% disabled. I
> needed something to occupy my time, so I repair donated computers and
> give them away to local disabled veterans.
>
> I also built a commercial TV station abut 10 years ago, and was an
> engineer at two other stations.

You might want to retrace your steps and see if you can figure out where you
left your sense of humor.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

LOL That reminds of the story of the fried chicken head in McDonald's
Nuggets.

Stick to live bats--they're smaller. Just ask, Ozzy!!


Michael A. Terrell wrote:
> WinXP_Powered wrote:
>
>>That was the point of this "fun exercise"--to leave it up to your
>>interpretation.
>>
>>As for MY answer, you guessed it right off. I was going to refer to the
>>blinkenlights.com timeline.
>>
>>As we can all see from the varied responses here, the interpretation of
>>"personal computer" is something we can't seem to agree on. If that
>>makes it a poor question, oh well.
>>
>>I posted the question so we could take a break from the seriousness of
>>the rest of this newsgroup and inject a little fun here--not to start an
>>argument or debate.
>>
>>Once a techie, always a techie, huh? No wonder they call us GEEKS!! LOL
>
>
>
> I am not a GEEK! I have never, ever bit the head off of a live
> chicken while working for a circus, or for that matter, at any other
> time. The term was Nerd when I was growing up.
>
>

Then I'm sure you remember the old 1540 drives (if memory serves me
right) with the fast flashing red light. I remember that as one of the
most common failures on the old C-64s. Those C-64s sure were cool for
their price and time.


Michael A. Terrell wrote:
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>
>>Re: "The term was Nerd when I was growing up."
>>
>>Based on that, you are likely in the wrong thread. You should be in the
>>"any other 50+ yr olds ???" thread.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> No, I've been in best buy, and I do believe their "Geeks" do eat live
> chickens. Their store in Orlando screwed up a lot of computers, and
> charged a lot of money for it. One that was brought to me for a blind
> man supposedly had a bad hard drive controller. I found three AT IDE
> Interface cards set for the same base address. They apparently put in
> the second card and it didn't work, so they tried again before they
> charged him labor and parts and gave it back not working. I saw dozens
> of others from that store, bout only a couple from all the other
> computer stores in the area.
>
>
> BTW, I am 53, a disabled veteran, and I have repaired computers since
> 1982 when you needed a oscilloscope and gold soldering skills. I was
> repairing Commodore 64 computers before there was a schematic or parts
> on the market, and I still repair some motherboards and other computer
> parts. in other words, a nerd. A geek just tosses everything into the
> dumpster.
>
>