In 1975, Commodore acquired it’s microprocessor subsidiary MOS Technology, who brought with them designs for a computer kit based on their 6502 microprocessor. Deciding not to focus on building calculators, Commodore president Jack Tramiel ordered the design of a machine around the kit at the urging of designer Chuck Peddle….
The TRS-80 was a series of models sold by Tandy through Radio Shack stores in the 70s and 80s. Announced in August of 1977, it was intended to compete with the Commodore PET and the Apple II. The original production was limited to 3,000 machines, just in case the market…
After Wozniak had completed design on the Apple-1, he already had in mind enhancements that would make his computer faster and more functional. He wanted to make it display in color. He worked to combine the terminal and memory functions of the Apple-1 by moving the display into main memory,…
The first Cray-1® system by Cray Research (originally Control Data Corporation) was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 for $8.8 million. It boasted a world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second (160 megaflops) and an 8 megabyte (1 million word) main memory. The Cray-1’s architecture reflected…
The MITS Altair 8800 was built by Ed Roberts, who founded MITS in the early 1970s. Originally producing lights for electronic hobbyists, they were heavily in debt by 1974. Roberts had a new idea, a computer affordable for the average person, and managed to make a deal with Intel to…
Scelbi aimed the 8H, available both in kit form and fully assembled, at scientific, electronic, and biological applications. Designed by Nate Wadsworth and Bob Findley in 1973, it was based on the Intel 8008 processor, and was the first microprocessor based kit to hit the market. It came with 1KB…
The Xerox Alto was designed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the first personal computer with a desktop/GUI. Designed by Chuck Thacker, it had 128kb of memory that was expandable to a whopping 512kb. It also held a hard drive with a 2.5mb cartridge, all inside a small refrigerator-size…
The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn’t require high performance.
The TV Typewriter was designed by Don Lancaster. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided…
Begun in 1969 by Allen-Bradley, MOS Technology originally was a supplier for Atari, but in 1975 they joined with ex-Motorola engineers to design and build low cost CPUs that performed better than leading CPUs like the Motorola 6800. The first MOS chip, the 6501, was four times faster than the…