Firsts

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Sun Jan 11 12:32:06 1998

> If you mean PC (as in the IBM PC) then the answer is IBM. However if you
> man pc as in personally owned computer, then you go back by maybe 10-20
> years to things like old surplus missle computers, homebrewed systems and
> PDP-8s and the like. Prior to the IBM abortion pc meant personally owned
> and was not based on what it was but who owned it. Personally owned
> computers was a new thing starting in the late 60s to early 70s. Around
> 72-73 it was possible to buy a used PDP-8 or CM2000 for a few thousand
> dollars. I know in December of 72 I almost bought a Cincinati Millicron
> CM2000 for the offered price of $2000(big bucks then) with 8k of core,
> serial line card and 6port muxed serial card.

The PDP-8/s (a weird, low-cost, serial version of the PDP-8) was the first
machine that really could be owned by anyone with the cash ($10,000,
according to the announcement ad in Scientific American). DEC had one at
each sales office for cash and carry sales. I would not be suprised if at
least a few engineers that made it big in 1960s military contracting
purchased some on a whim.

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Sun Jan 11 1998 - 12:32:06 GMT