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Personal computer

Personal computer

At the time (around the middle of the 20th century) when few people knew the word “computer”, and most of them thought that the “computer” meant a person who solved equations, there were people, who dreamed of a personal computer. There were a number of contenders for the title of Personal Computer before the machines that we now think of in this context appeared on the scene. For example, some historians have called the IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer, introduced in September 1957, IBM’s first personal computer on the premise that it was intended for use by a single operator, but this machine was a big cabinet, was not based on the stored program concept and it cost $55000, a huge sum for the time! No way to be personal at all! So, who was the first?

Electric Brain Simon, Edmund Berkeley, 1950LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer), 1961
Dynabook, Alan Kay, 1968Hewlett-Packard 9100A, 1968
LINC (Laboratory Instrument Computer), 1961Imlac PDS-1, 1970
Datapoint 2200, 1970Kenbak-1, John BlanKENBAKer, 1971
Xerox Alto, 1972Hewlett-Packard 9830A, 1972
Micral, François Gernelle, 1973Wang 2200, 1973
Scelbi-8H, 1974Altair 8800, Ed Roberts, 1974
IBM Portable Computer 5100, 1975Sphere 1, Michael Donald Wise, 1975
Digital Group Systems, 1975Sol-20, Lee Felsenstein, 1976
Xerox NoteTaker, 1976Compucolor 8001, 1976
Tandy TRS-80, 1977Apple ][, 1977
Grid Compass, 1979Sinclair ZX80, 1980
IBM PC, 1981Osborne 1, 1981
Commodore 64, 1982Apple Macintosh, 1984
Poqet PC, 1989IBM Simon Personal Communicator, 1992

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