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The man who made 'the world's first personal computer'
- billforsternz 11y agoInteresting story, about a (very) early 8 bit leds plus switches style computer with a discrete custom CPU. I was amused at the assertion that this computer (with its 256 bytes of Ram) could "handle word processing". Perhaps they mean processing one CPU "word" (=byte) at a time ?
- Animats 11y ago1971 was late to be doing that. Take a look at the Viatron, from 1968.[1][2] $39 a month. This was a respectable computer, with 4K of (core-type) RAM, two cassette tape drives, keyboard, and CRT. The company had trouble manufacturing it, because it pushed the limits of what you could do at that price point, but systems were built and delivered. [1] http://www.retrogator.com/2014/07/23/1969-viatron-system-21-computer-original-vintage-print-ad/ http://www.retrogator.com/2014/07/23/1969-viatron-system-21-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viatron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viatron
- johansch 11y agoIt came with a: "Printing robot – fit over the keyboard of a standard IBM Selectric typewriter and generated typed output at 12 characters per second." Interesting solution.
- Animats 11y agoThe Viatron schematics are on line.[1] [1] http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/viatron http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/viatron
- WalterBright 11y ago> In 1970, I had no vision of what the future would bring. There were other companies as well that had all the pieces in place, but lacked any sort of vision. They just didn't know what they had. I worked for one in the 70's, Aph. That's the ingredient that people like Gates and Jobs brought.
- teh_klev 11y agoThere's a website dedicated to the Kenbak-1: http://www.kenbak-1.net/ http://www.kenbak-1.net/ The history section is written by John Blankenbaker himself: http://www.kenbak-1.net/index_files/page0001.htm http://www.kenbak-1.net/index_files/page0001.htm