Microcomputer Revolution
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The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called
microcomputers A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...
– were sold often in
electronic kit An electronic kit is a package of electrical components used to build an electronic device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram (schematic), assembly instructions and often a printed circuit board (PCB) or ...
form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.


Etymology

An early use of the term "personal computer" appeared in a 3 November 1962, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' article reporting
John W. Mauchly John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first co ...
's vision of future computing as detailed at a recent meeting of the
Institute of Industrial Engineers The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), formerly the Institute of Industrial Engineers, is a professional society dedicated solely to the support of the industrial engineering profession and individuals involved with improving q ...
. Mauchly. stated, "There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a ''personal computer''". In 1968, a manufacturer took the risk of referring to their product this way, when
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
advertised their "Powerful Computing Genie" as "The New
Hewlett-Packard 9100A The Hewlett-Packard 9100A (hp 9100A) is an early programmable calculator (or computer), first appearing in 1968. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Bill Hewlett said, "If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our ...
personal computer". This advertisement was deemed too extreme for the target audience and replaced with a much drier ad for the
HP 9100A HP may refer to: Businesses and organisations * HP Inc., an American technology company ** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc. * HP Foods ** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods * Handley Page, an aircraft company * Hindustan Petroleum * ...
programmable calculator. Over the next seven years, the phrase had gained enough recognition that ''Byte'' magazine referred to its readers in its first edition as " nthe ''personal computing'' field", and ''
Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...
'' defined the personal computer as a "non-(time)shared system containing sufficient processing power and storage capabilities to satisfy the needs of an individual user." In 1977, three new pre-assembled small computers hit the markets which ''Byte'' would refer to as the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing. The
Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
and the
PET 2001 The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, an ...
were advertised as ''personal computers'', while the
TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
was described as a microcomputer used for household tasks including "''personal'' financial management". By 1979, over half a million microcomputers were sold and the youth of the day had a new concept of the personal computer.


Overview

The history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1977 with the introduction of microcomputers, although some mainframe and minicomputers had been applied as single-user systems much earlier. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the microprocessor, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold often in electronic kit form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.


Mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers

Computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...
s were used for
time sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
access to central computers. Before the introduction of the
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
in the early 1970s, computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large corporations, universities, government agencies, and similar-sized institutions. End users generally did not directly interact with the machine, but instead would prepare tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches. A number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in
batch mode Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...
. After the job had completed, users could collect the results. In some cases, it could take hours or days between submitting a job to the computing center and receiving the output. A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing system, multiple computer terminals let many people share the use of one
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
processor. This was common in business applications and in science and engineering. A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor. In places such as
Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
and
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
, students with access to some of the first computers experimented with applications that would today be typical of a personal computer; for example,
computer aided drafting Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
was foreshadowed by
T-square A T-square is a technical drawing instrument used by draftsmen primarily as a guide for drawing horizontal lines on a drafting table. The instrument is named after its resemblance to the letter T, with a long shaft called the "blade" and a sho ...
, a program written in 1961, and an ancestor of today's computer games was found in
Spacewar! ''Spacewar!'' is a space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for the newly installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Mas ...
in 1962. Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early
minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
s such as the
LINC The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the "Linc", suggesting the project's o ...
and
PDP-8 The PDP-8 is a 12-bit computing, 12-bit minicomputer that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units being sold over the model's ...
, and later on
VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The VA ...
and larger minicomputers from
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
(DEC),
Data General Data General Corporation was one of the first minicomputer firms of the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer ...
,
Prime Computer Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. With the advent of PCs and the decline of the minicomputer industry, Prime was forced out of the market in the early 1990s, and by the end of ...
, and others. By today's standards, they were very large (about the size of a refrigerator) and cost prohibitive (typically tens of thousands of US dollars). However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to operate than many of the mainframe computers of the time. Therefore, they were accessible for individual laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the
batch processing Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...
and bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center. In addition, minicomputers were relatively interactive and soon had their own
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s. The minicomputer
Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...
(1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers because of its
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
,
bit-map In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: the ...
ped high resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage,
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
, and special software. In 1945,
Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...
published an essay called "
As We May Think "As We May Think" is a 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush which has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. It was first published in ''The Atlantic'' in July 1945 and republished in an abridged v ...
" in which he outlined a possible solution to the growing problem of information storage and retrieval. In 1968, SRI researcher
Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
gave what was later called
The Mother of All Demos "The Mother of All Demos" is a name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, given at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Compu ...
, in which he offered a preview of things that have become the staples of daily working life in the 21st century:
e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...
,
word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
,
video conferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...
, and the
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
. The demo was the culmination of research in Engelbart's
Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to come ...
laboratory, which concentrated on applying computer technology to facilitate creative human thought.


Microprocessor and cost reduction

The minicomputer ancestors of the modern personal computer used early
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(microchip) technology, which reduced size and cost, but they contained no
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
. This meant that they were still large and difficult to manufacture just like their mainframe predecessors. After the "computer-on-a-chip" was commercialized, the cost to manufacture a computer system dropped dramatically. The arithmetic, logic, and control functions that previously occupied several costly
circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...
s were now available in one integrated circuit, making it possible to produce them in high volume. Concurrently, advances in the development of
solid state memory A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data Persistence (computer science), persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the Computer ...
eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry
magnetic core memory Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or, informally, core. Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magnetic ...
used in prior generations of computers. The single-chip microprocessor was made possible by an improvement in
MOS MOS or Mos may refer to: Technology * MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor * Mathematical Optimization Society * Model output statistics, a weather-forecasting technique * MOS (filmm ...
technology, the
silicon-gate In semiconductor electronics fabrication technology, a self-aligned gate is a transistor manufacturing approach whereby the gate electrode of a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) is used as a mask for the doping of ...
MOS chip, developed in 1968 by
Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group du ...
, who later used silicon-gate MOS technology to develop the first single-chip microprocessor, the
Intel 4004 The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs. The 4004 was the first signific ...
, in 1971. A few researchers at places such as
SRI Shri (; , ) is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific. The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Marathi, Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian), Javanese, ...
and
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
were working on computers that a single person could use and that could be connected by fast, versatile networks: not home computers, but personal ones. At
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
,
Joseph Weisbecker Joseph A. Weisbecker (September 4, 1932 – November 15, 1990) was an early microprocessor and microcomputer researcher, as well as a gifted writer and designer of toys and games. He was a recipient of the David Sarnoff award for outstanding tech ...
designed and built a true home computer known as FRED, but this saw mixed interest from management. The CPU design was released as the COSMAC in 1974 and several experimental machines using it were built in 1975, but RCA declined to market any of these until introducing the COSMAC ELF in 1976, in kit form. By this time a number of other machines had entered the market. After the introduction of the Intel 4004 in 1972, microprocessor costs declined rapidly. In 1974 the American electronics magazine ''
Radio-Electronics ''Radio-Electronics'' was an American electronics magazine that was published under various titles from 1929 to 2003. Hugo Gernsback, sometimes called the father of science fiction, started it as ''Radio-Craft'' in July 1929. The title was changed ...
'' described the
Mark-8 The Mark-8 is a microcomputer design from 1974, based on the Intel 8008 CPU (which was the world's first 8-bit microprocessor). The Mark-8 was designed by Jonathan Titus, a Virginia Tech graduate student in Chemistry. After building the machine ...
computer kit, based on the
Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 ("''eight-thousand-eight''" or "''eighty-oh-eight''") is an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), implemented and manufactured by Intel, and introduced in April 1972. It is an 8-bit C ...
processor. In January of the following year, ''
Popular Electronics ''Popular Electronics'' was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soo ...
'' magazine published an article describing a kit based on the
Intel 8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...
, a somewhat more powerful and easier to use processor. The
Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertiseme ...
sold remarkably well even though initial memory size was limited to a few hundred bytes and there was no software available. However, the Altair kit was much less costly than an Intel development system of the time and so was purchased by companies interested in developing microprocessor control for their own products. Expansion memory boards and peripherals were soon listed by the original manufacturer, and later by
plug compatible Plug compatible refers to " hardware that is designed to perform exactly like another vendor's product." The term PCM was originally applied to manufacturers who made replacements for IBM peripherals. Later this term was used to refer to IBM-com ...
manufacturers. The very first
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
product was a 4 kilobyte paper tape BASIC interpreter, which allowed users to develop programs in a higher-level language. The alternative was to hand-assemble
machine code In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
that could be directly loaded into the microcomputer's memory using a front panel of toggle switches, pushbuttons and LED displays. While the hardware
front panel A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, digit and symbol displays, to ...
emulated those used by early mainframe and minicomputers, after a very short time I/O through a terminal was the preferred human/machine interface, and front panels became extinct.


The beginnings of the personal computer industry


Simon

Simon was a project developed by
Edmund Berkeley Edmund Callis Berkeley (February 22, 1909 – March 7, 1988) was an American computer scientist who co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1947. His 1949 book ''Giant Brains, or Machines That Think'' popularized cognitiv ...
and presented in a thirteen articles series issued in ''
Radio-Electronics ''Radio-Electronics'' was an American electronics magazine that was published under various titles from 1929 to 2003. Hugo Gernsback, sometimes called the father of science fiction, started it as ''Radio-Craft'' in July 1929. The title was changed ...
'' magazine, from October 1950. Although there were far more advanced machines at the time of its construction, the Simon represented the first experience of building an automatic simple
digital computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pro ...
, for educational purposes. In fact, its ALU had only 2 bits, and the total memory was 12 bits (2bits x6). In 1950, it was sold for US$600.


IBM 610

The IBM 610 was designed between 1948 and 1957 by John Lentz at the Watson Lab at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
as the Personal Automatic Computer (PAC) and announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957. Although it was faulted for its speed, the IBM 610 handled floating-point arithmetic naturally. With a price tag of $55,000, only 180 units were produced.


Olivetti Elea

The Elea 9003 is one of a series of
mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
computers
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
developed starting in the late 1950s. The first prototype was created in 1957. The system, made entirely with transistors for high performance, was conceived, designed and developed by a small group of researchers led by
Mario Tchou Mario Tchou (1924–1961), was an Italian engineer, of Chinese descent, a pioneer of computer science in Italy. Mario Tchou was an engineer who led a group of scientists from the University of Pisa to invent, in 1959, the Olivetti Elea, world most p ...
(1924–1961). It was the first solid-state computer designed (it was fully manufactured in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
). The knowledge obtained was applied a few years later in the development of the successful
Programma 101 The Olivetti Programma 101, also known as Perottina or P101, is one of the first "all in one" commercial desktop programmable calculators, although not the first. Produced by Italian manufacturer Olivetti, based in Ivrea, Piedmont, and invented by ...
electronic calculator.


LINC

Designed in 1962, the LINC was an early laboratory computer especially designed for interactive use with laboratory instruments. Some of the early LINC computers were assembled from kits of parts by the end users.


Olivetti Programma 101

First produced in 1965, the
Programma 101 The Olivetti Programma 101, also known as Perottina or P101, is one of the first "all in one" commercial desktop programmable calculators, although not the first. Produced by Italian manufacturer Olivetti, based in Ivrea, Piedmont, and invented by ...
was one of the first printing programmable calculators. It was designed and produced by the Italian company
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
with
Pier Giorgio Perotto Pier Giorgio Perotto (Turin, December 24, 1930 – Genoa, January 23, 2002) was an Italian electrical engineer and inventor. Working for the manufacturer Olivetti, he led a design team that built the Programma 101, one of the world's first prog ...
being the lead developer. The Olivetti Programma 101 was presented at the 1965 New York World's Fair after two years work (1962- 1964). Over 44,000 units were sold worldwide; in the US its cost at launch was $3,200. It was targeted to offices and scientific entities for their daily work because of its high computing capabilities in a small space with a relatively low cost;
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
was amongst its first owners. Built without integrated circuits or microprocessors, it used only transistors, resistors and condensers for its processing, the Programma 101 had features found in modern personal computers, such as memory, keyboard, printing unit, magnetic card reader/recorder, control and arithmetic unit. HP later copied the Programma 101 architecture for its HP9100 series.


Datapoint 2200

Released in June 1970, the programmable terminal called the Datapoint 2200 is among the earliest known devices that bears significant resemblance to the modern personal computer, with a CRT screen, keyboard, programmability, and program storage. It was made by CTC (now known as Datapoint) and was a complete system in a case with the approximate footprint of an
IBM Selectric typewriter The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961. Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the perio ...
. The system's CPU was constructed from roughly a hundred (mostly)
TTL logic TTL may refer to: Photography * Through-the-lens metering, a camera feature * Zenit TTL, an SLR film camera named for its TTL metering capability Technology * Time to live, a computer data lifespan-limiting mechanism * Transistor–transistor lo ...
components, which are groups of gates, latches, counters, etc. The company had commissioned
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
, and also
Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
, to develop a single-chip CPU with that same functionality. Texas Instruments designed a chip rather quickly, based on Intel's early drawings. But their attempt had several bugs and so did not work very well. Intel's version was delayed and both were a little too slow for CTC's needs. A deal was made that in return for not charging CTC for the development work, Intel could instead sell the processor as their own product, along with the supporting ICs they had developed. The first customer was Seiko, which approached Intel early on with this idea, based on what they had seen
Busicom was a Japanese company that manufactured and sold computer-related products headquartered in Taito, Tokyo. It owned the rights to Intel's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970. Busicom ask ...
do with the 4004. This became the
Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 ("''eight-thousand-eight''" or "''eighty-oh-eight''") is an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), implemented and manufactured by Intel, and introduced in April 1972. It is an 8-bit C ...
. Although it required several additional ICs, it is generally known as the first 8-bit microprocessor. The requirements of the Datapoint 2200 determined the 8008 architecture, which was later expanded into the
8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibili ...
and the
Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
upon which
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
was designed. These CPUs in turn influenced the 8086, which defined the whole line of "x86" processors used in all IBM-compatible
PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
to this day (2020). Although the design of the Datapoint 2200's TTL based
bit serial In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are ...
CPU and the Intel 8008 were technically very different, they were largely software-compatible. From a software perspective, the Datapoint 2200 therefore functioned as if it were using an 8008.


Kenbak-1

The Kenbak-1, released in early 1971, is considered by the
Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...
to be the world's first personal computer. It was designed and invented by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was first sold in early 1971. Unlike a modern personal computer, the Kenbak-1 was built of small-scale integrated circuits, and did not use a microprocessor. The system first sold for US$750. Only around 40 machines were ever built and sold. In 1973, production of the Kenbak-1 stopped as Kenbak Corporation folded. With only 256 bytes of memory, an 8-bit word size, input and output restricted to lights and switches, and no apparent way to extend its power, the Kenbak-1 was most useful for learning the principles of programming but not capable of running application programs. Interestingly, 256 bytes of memory, 8 bit word size, and I/O limited to switches and lights on the front panel are also characteristics of the 1975
Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertiseme ...
, whose fate was diametrically opposed to that of the Kenbak. The differentiating factor might have been the extensibility of the Altair, without which it was practically useless.


Micral N

The French company R2E was formed by two former engineers of the
Intertechnique Zodiac Aerospace was a French aerospace group founded in 1896 that supplied systems and equipment for aircraft. It had around 100 sites across the globe and employed nearly 35,000 people. In October 2018, it was acquired by French aerospace an ...
company to sell their
Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 ("''eight-thousand-eight''" or "''eighty-oh-eight''") is an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), implemented and manufactured by Intel, and introduced in April 1972. It is an 8-bit C ...
-based microcomputer design. The system was developed at the Institut national de la recherche agronomique to automate hygrometric measurements. The system ran at 500 kHz and included 16 KB of memory, and sold for 8500 Francs, about $1300US. A bus, called Pluribus, was introduced that allowed connection of up to 14 boards. Boards for digital I/O, analog I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E. The Micral operating system was initially called Sysmic, and was later renamed Prologue. R2E was absorbed by
Groupe Bull Bull SAS (also known as Groupe Bull, Bull Information Systems, or simply Bull) is a French computer company headquartered in Les Clayes-sous-Bois, in the western suburbs of Paris. The company has also been known at various times as Bull General El ...
in 1978. Although Groupe Bull continued the production of Micral computers, it was not interested in the personal computer market, and Micral computers were mostly confined to highway toll gates (where they remained in service until 1992) and similar niche markets.


Xerox Alto and Star

The
Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...
, developed at
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
in 1973, was the first computer to use a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
, the
desktop metaphor In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is t ...
, and a
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
(GUI), concepts first introduced by
Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
while at International. It was the first example of what would today be recognized as a complete personal computer. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973. In 1981,
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
Corporation introduced the
Xerox Star The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based ...
workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...
, officially known as the "8010 Star Information System". Drawing upon its predecessor, the Xerox Alto, it was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bit-mapped display, a windows-based
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
,
icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
, folders,
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
,
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
networking,
file server In computing, a file server (or fileserver) is a computer attached to a network that provides a location for shared disk access, i.e. storage of computer files (such as text, image, sound, video) that can be accessed by the workstations that are ab ...
s,
print server In computer networking, a print server, or printer server, is a type of server that connects printers to client computers over a network. It accepts print jobs from the computers and sends the jobs to the appropriate printers, queuing the jobs local ...
s and
e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
. While its use was limited to the engineers at Xerox PARC, the Alto had features years ahead of its time. Both the Xerox Alto and the Xerox Star would inspire the
Apple Lisa Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. ...
and the
Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
.


IBM SCAMP

In 1972-1973 a team led by Dr. Paul Friedl at the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a
portable computer A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another and included a display and keyboard together, with a single plug, much like later desktop computers called '' all-in-ones'' (AIO), that integrate the sy ...
prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the
IBM PALM processor The PALM (Put All Logic in Microcode) is a 16-bit central processing unit (CPU) developed by IBM. It was used in the IBM 5100 Portable Computer, a predecessor of the IBM PC, and the IBM 5110 and IBM 5120 follow-on machines. It is likely PALM wa ...
with a
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
compact cassette drive, small CRT and full function keyboard. SCAMP
emulated In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...
an
IBM 1130 The IBM 1130 Computing System, introduced in 1965, was IBM's least expensive computer at that time. A binary 16-bit machine, it was marketed to price-sensitive, computing-intensive technical markets, like education and engineering, succeeding th ...
minicomputer in order to run APL\1130.IBM Archives
/ref> In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the
Wang 2200 The Wang 2200 was an all-in-one minicomputer released by Wang Laboratories in May 1973. Unlike some other desktop computers, such as the HP 9830, it had a cathode-ray tube (CRT) in a cabinet that also included an integrated computer-controlled ...
or HP 9800 offered only
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
. Because it was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single-user computer, ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer". The prototype is in the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
.


IBM 5100

IBM 5100 The IBM 5100 Portable Computer is a portable computer (one of the first) introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM Personal Computer, and eight before the first successful IBM compatible portable computer, the Compaq Portable. It ...
was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) that IBM demonstrated in 1973. In January 1978 IBM announced the IBM 5110, its larger cousin. The 5100 was withdrawn in March 1982. When the PC was introduced in 1981, it was originally designated as the IBM 5150, putting it in the "5100" series, though its architecture wasn't directly descended from the IBM 5100.


Altair 8800

Development of the single-chip microprocessor was the gateway to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. It was only a matter of time before one such design was able to hit a sweet spot in terms of pricing and performance, and that machine is generally considered to be the Altair 8800, from MITS, a small company that produced electronics kits for hobbyists. The Altair was introduced in a ''
Popular Electronics ''Popular Electronics'' was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soo ...
'' magazine article in the January 1975 issue. In keeping with MITS's earlier projects, the Altair was sold in kit form, although a relatively complex one consisting of four circuit boards and many parts. Priced at only $400, the Altair tapped into pent-up demand and surprised its creators when it generated thousands of orders in the first month. Unable to keep up with demand, MITS sold the design after about 10,000 kits had shipped. The introduction of the Altair spawned an entire industry based on the basic layout and internal design. New companies like
Cromemco Cromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Zilog Z80, Z80-based S-100 bus computers and peripherals in the early days of the personal computer revolution. The company began as a partnership in 1974 betwe ...
started up to supply add-on kits, while
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
was founded to supply a
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
interpreter for the systems. Soon after, a number of complete "clone" designs, typified by the
IMSAI 8080 The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in late 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and later 8085 and S-100 bus. It was a clone of its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800. The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first "clone" micr ...
, appeared on the market. This led to a wide variety of systems based on the
S-100 bus The S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE 696-1983 ''(withdrawn)'', is an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800. The bus was the first industry standard expansion bus for the microcomputer industry. computers, consisting of ...
introduced with the Altair, machines of generally improved performance, quality and ease-of-use. The Altair, and early clones, were relatively difficult to use. The machines contained no
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
in
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
, so starting it up required a
machine language In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
program to be entered by hand via front-panel switches, one location at a time. The program was typically a small driver for an attached cassette tape reader, which would then be used to read in another "real" program. Later systems added bootstrapping code to improve this process, and the machines became almost universally associated with the
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
operating system, loaded from
floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
. The Altair created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080,
Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples wer ...
and
Intel 8085 The Intel 8085 ("''eighty-eighty-five''") is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Intel and introduced in March 1976. It is software-binary compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 with only two minor instructions added to support its added in ...
microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M-80 operating system developed by
Gary Kildall Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, a ...
at
Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and ...
. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as
WordStar WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sol ...
and
dBase II dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language ...
.


Homebrew Computer Club

Although the Altair spawned an entire business, another side effect it had was to demonstrate that the microprocessor had so reduced the cost and complexity of building a microcomputer that anyone with an interest could build their own. Many such hobbyists met and traded notes at the meetings of the
Homebrew Computer Club The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that aspec ...
(HCC) in
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
. Although the HCC was relatively short-lived, its influence on the development of the modern PC was enormous. Members of the group complained that microcomputers would never become commonplace if they still had to be built up, from parts like the original Altair, or even in terms of assembling the various add-ons that turned the machine into a useful system. What they felt was needed was an all-in-one system. Out of this desire came the
Sol-20 The Sol-20 was the first fully assembled microcomputer with a built-in keyboard and television output, what would later be known as a home computer. The design was a combination of an Intel 8080-based motherboard, a VDM-1 graphics card, the 3P+S ...
computer, which placed an entire S-100 system – QWERTY keyboard, CPU, display card, memory and ports – into an attractive single box. The systems were packaged with a cassette tape interface for storage and a 12"
monochrome monitor A monochrome monitor is a type of computer monitor in which computer text and images are displayed in varying tones of only one color, as opposed to a color monitor that can display text and images in multiple colors. They were very common in t ...
. Complete with a copy of BASIC, the system sold for US$2,100. About 10,000 Sol-20 systems were sold. Although the Sol-20 was the first all-in-one system that we would recognize today, the basic concept was already rippling through other members of the group, and interested external companies.


Other machines of the era

Other 1977 machines that were important within the hobbyist community at the time included the
Exidy Sorcerer The Sorcerer is a home computer system released in 1978 by the video game company Exidy. Based on the Zilog Z80 and the general layout of the emerging S-100 standard, the Sorcerer was comparatively advanced when released, especially when compar ...
, the
NorthStar Horizon The North Star Horizon was a popular 8-bit S-100 bus computer introduced in October 1977. Like most S-100 machines of the era, it was built around the Zilog Z80A microprocessor, and typically ran the CP/M operating system. It was produced by ...
, the
Cromemco Z-2 Z-2 is a series of microcomputers made by Cromemco, Inc. which were introduced to the market in the middle to late 1970s. They were S-100 bus machines powered by the Zilog Z80 processor and typically ran on the CP/M operating system. They were or ...
, and the
Heathkit H8 Heathkit's H8 is an Intel 8080A-based microcomputer sold in kit form starting in 1977. The H8 is similar to the S-100 bus computers of the era, and like those machines is often used with the CP/M operating system on floppy disk. The main dif ...
.


1977 and the emergence of the "Trinity"

By 1976, there were several firms racing to introduce the first truly successful commercial personal computers. Three machines, the
Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
,
PET 2001 The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, an ...
and
TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
were all released in 1977, becoming the most popular by late 1978. ''Byte'' magazine later referred to Commodore, Apple, and Tandy as the "1977 Trinity". Also in 1977,
Sord Computer Corporation } Sord Computer Corporation is a Japanese electronics company, founded in 1970 by the entrepreneur Takayoshi Shiina. From 1985 until 2018, it was a subsidiary of Toshiba and became known variously as Toshiba Personal Computer System Corporation an ...
released the Sord M200 Smart Home Computer in Japan.


Apple II

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve Jobs, he c ...
(known as "Woz"), a regular visitor to
Homebrew Computer Club The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that aspec ...
meetings, designed the single-board
Apple I The Apple Computer 1, originally released as the Apple Computer and known later as the Apple I or Apple-1, is an 8-bit desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak. The idea ...
computer and first demonstrated it there. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at US$500 each from the Byte Shop, Woz and his friend
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
founded
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer. It had color graphics, a full QWERTY keyboard, and internal slots for expansion, which were mounted in a high quality streamlined plastic case. The monitor and I/O devices were sold separately. The original Apple II
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
was only the built-in BASIC interpreter contained in ROM.
Apple DOS Apple DOS is the family of disk operating systems for the Apple II series of microcomputers from late 1978 through early 1983. It was superseded by ProDOS in 1983. Apple DOS has three major releases: DOS 3.1, DOS 3.2, and DOS 3.3; each one of t ...
was added to support the diskette drive; the last version was "Apple DOS 3.3". Its higher price and lack of
floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...
BASIC, along with a lack of retail distribution sites, caused it to lag in sales behind the other Trinity machines until 1979, when it surpassed the PET. It was again pushed into 4th place when
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
introduced its popular
Atari 8-bit The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...
systems. Despite slow initial sales, the Apple II's lifetime was about eight years longer than other machines, and so accumulated the highest total sales. By 1985 2.1 million had sold and more than 4 million Apple II's were shipped by the end of its production in 1993.


PET

Chuck Peddle Charles Ingerham Peddle (November 25, 1937 – December 15, 2019) was an American electrical engineer best known as the main designer of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, the single-board computer, and its successor, the Commodore PET p ...
designed the ''Commodore PET'' (short for Personal Electronic Transactor) around his
MOS 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
processor. It was essentially a
single-board computer A single-board computer (SBC) is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor(s), memory, input/output (I/O) and other features required of a functional computer. Single-board computers are commonly made as demonstrati ...
with a simple TTL-based CRT driver circuit driving a small built-in monochrome monitor with 40×25 character graphics. The processor card, keyboard, monitor and cassette drive were all mounted in a single metal case. In 1982, ''Byte'' referred to the PET design as "the world's first personal computer". The PET shipped in two models; the 2001–4 with 4 KB of
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...
, and the 2001–8 with 8 KB. The machine also included a built-in Datassette for data storage located on the front of the case, which left little room for the keyboard. The 2001 was announced in June 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped in mid October 1977. However they remained back-ordered for months, and to ease deliveries they eventually canceled the 4 KB version early the next year. Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a "
Chiclet keyboard A chiclet keyboard or island-style keyboard is a computer keyboard with keys that form an array of small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like erasers or "Chiclets", a brand of chewing gum manufactured in the s ...
" due to the keys' resemblance to the popular gum candy. This was addressed in the upgraded "dash N" and "dash B" versions of the 2001, which put the cassette outside the case, and included a much larger keyboard with a full stroke non-click motion. Internally a newer and simpler motherboard was used, along with an upgrade in memory to 8, 16, or 32 KB, known as the 2001-N-8, 2001-N-16 or 2001-N-32, respectively. The PET was the least successful of the 1977 Trinity machines, with under 1 million sales.


TRS-80

Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, ...
(Radio Shack) introduced the TRS-80, retroactively known as the Model I as the company expanded the line with more powerful models. The Model I combined motherboard and keyboard into one unit with a separate monitor and power supply. Tandy's 3000+
Radio Shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...
storefronts ensured the computer would have widespread distribution and support (repair, upgrade, training services) that neither Apple nor Commodore could touch. The Model I used a
Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples wer ...
processor clocked at 1.77 MHz (later specimens shipped with the Z80A). The basic model originally shipped with 4 KB of RAM and Level 1 BASIC produced in-house. RAM in the first 4 KB machines was upgradeable to 16 KB and Level 2 Microsoft BASIC, which became the standard basic configuration. An Expansion Interface provided sockets for further RAM expansion to 48 KB. Its other strong features were its full stroke
QWERTY keyboard QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typ ...
with numeric keypad (lacking in the very first units but upgradeable), small size, well written Microsoft floating-point BASIC and inclusion of a 64 column monitor and tape deck—all for approximately half the cost of the Apple II. Eventually, 5.25 inch floppy drives and megabyte-capacity hard disks were made available by Tandy and third parties. The Expansion Interface provided for up to four floppy drives and hard drives to be daisy-chained, a slot for an
RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such a ...
serial port and a
parallel port In computing, a parallel port is a type of interface found on early computers (personal and otherwise) for connecting peripherals. The name refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data at once ( parallel ...
for printers. With the (later) LDOS operating system double-sided 80-track floppy drives were supported, and features such as Disk Basic with support for overlays and suspended/background programs, device independent data redirection, Job Control Language (batch processing), flexible backup and file maintenance, typeahead and keyboard macros. The Model I could not meet FCC regulations on radio interference due to its plastic case and exterior cables. Apple resolved the issue with an interior metallic foil but the solution would not work for Tandy with the Model I. The Model I also suffered from problems with its cabling between its CPU and Expansion Interface (spontaneous reboots) and keyboard bounce (keystrokes would randomly repeat), and the earliest versions of TRSDOS similarly had technical troubles. Though these issues were quickly or eventually resolved, the computer suffered in some quarters from a reputation for poor build quality. Nevertheless, all the early microcomputer manufacturers experienced similar difficulties. Since the Model II and Model III were already in production by 1981 Tandy decided to stop manufacturing the Model I. Radio Shack sold some 1.5 million Model I's. The line continued until late 1991 when the
TRS-80 Model 4 The TRS-80 Model 4 is the last Z80-based home computer family by Radio Shack, sold from April 1983 through late 1991. Model 4 Tandy Corporation introduced the TRS-80 Model 4 in April 26th, 1983 as the successor to the TRS-80 Model III. The M ...
was at last retired.


The Japanese Trinity

Similarly to the American trinity, Japan has a term for their own most important machines of that era: " the eight-bit ''gosanke''" (8ビット御三家, ''hachi-bitto
gosanke The , also called simply , or even , were the most noble three branches of the Tokugawa clan of Japan: Owari, Kii, and Mito, all of which were descended from clan founder Tokugawa Ieyasu's three youngest sons, Yoshinao, Yorinobu, and Yorifusa ...
''). It consists of the (1978-09),
Sharp MZ-80K The Sharp MZ is a series of personal computers sold in Japan and Europe (particularly Germany and Great Britain) by Sharp beginning in 1978. History Although commonly believed to stand for "Microcomputer Z80", the term MZ actually has it ...
(1978-12) and the NEC PC-8001 (announced 1979-05, shipped 1979-09). Each of these was the first of a series of machines from each manufacturer; NEC and Sharp continued these 8-bit lines into the late 1980s but Hitachi ended the series in 1984 as it was replaced in the ''gosanke'' by Fujitsu (see below).


Home computers

''Byte'' in January 1980 announced in an editorial that "the era of off-the-shelf personal computers has arrived". The magazine stated that "a desirable contemporary personal computer has 64 K of memory, about 500 K bytes of mass storage on line, any old competently designed computer architecture, upper and lowercase video terminal, printer, and high-level languages". The author reported that when he needed to purchase such a computer quickly he did so at a local store for $6000 in cash, and cited it as an example of "what the state of the art is at present ... as a mass-produced product". By early that year Radio Shack, Commodore, and Apple manufactured the vast majority of the one half-million microcomputers that existed. As component prices continued to fall, many companies entered the computer business. This led to an explosion of low-cost machines known as home computers that sold millions of units before the market imploded in a
price war A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...
in the early 1980s.


Atari 400/800

Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry. Based primarily around the Sunny ...
was a well-known brand in the late 1970s, both due to their hit arcade games like ''
Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcor ...
'', as well as the hugely successful
Atari VCS The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...
game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a t ...
. Realizing that the VCS would have a limited lifetime in the market before a technically advanced competitor came along, Atari decided they would be that competitor, and started work on a new console design that was much more advanced. While these designs were being developed, the Trinity machines hit the market with considerable fanfare. Atari's management decided to change their work to a home computer system instead. Their knowledge of the home market through the VCS resulted in machines that were almost indestructible and just as easy to use as a games machine—simply plug in a cartridge and go. The new machines were first introduced as the Atari 400 and 800 in 1978, but production problems prevented widespread sales until the next year. With a trio of custom graphics and sound co-processors and a 6502 CPU clocked ~80% faster than most competitors, the Atari machines had capabilities that no other microcomputer could match. In spite of a promising start with about 600,000 sold by 1981, they were unable to compete effectively with Commodore's introduction of the
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
in 1982, and only about 2 million machines were produced by the end of their production run. The 400 and 800 were tweaked into superficially improved models—the 1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE—as well as the 130XE with 128K of bank-switched RAM.


Sinclair

Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was incorporated in 1973 as Ablesdeal Ltd. and renamed "Westminster Mail Order Ltd" and then "Sinclair Instrument Ltd." in 1975. The company remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with the intention of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier company Sinclair Radionics; it adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981. In 1980, Clive Sinclair entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95, at the time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the UK. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, later becoming Britain's best selling computer, competing aggressively against Commodore and British
Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad ...
. At the height of its success, and largely inspired by the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer programme, the company established the "MetaLab" research centre at Milton Hall (near Cambridge), in order to pursue artificial intelligence, wafer-scale integration, formal verification and other advanced projects. The combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 led to financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to their computer products and brand name to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd exists today as a one-man company, continuing to market Sir Clive Sinclair's newest inventions. ;ZX80 The ZX80 home computer was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November of the same year Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd. ;ZX81 The ZX81 (known as the TS 1000 in the United States) was priced at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order. ;ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum was launched on 23 April 1982, priced at £125 for the 16 KB RAM version and £175 for the 48 KB version. ;Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL was announced in January 1984, priced at £399. Marketed as a more sophisticated 32-bit microcomputer for professional users, it used a Motorola 68008 processor. Production was delayed by several months, due to unfinished development of hardware and software at the time of the QL's launch. ;ZX Spectrum+ The ZX Spectrum+ was a repackaged ZX Spectrum 48K launched in October 1984. ;ZX Spectrum 128 The ZX Spectrum 128, with RAM expanded to 128 KB, a sound chip and other enhancements, was launched in Spain in September 1985 and the UK in January 1986, priced at £179.95.


TI-99/4A

Texas Instruments, at the time the world's largest chip manufacturer, decided to enter the home computer market with the TI-99/4. The first home computer designed around a 16-bit microprocessor, its specs on paper were far ahead of the competition, and Texas Instruments had enormous cash reserves and development capability. When it was released in late 1979, Texas Instruments initially focused on schools. Despite the 16-bit processor and custom video processor with sprite support, architectural restrictions meant prevented it from living up to expectations. It was updated to the
TI-99/4A The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on the Texas Instruments TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers, the TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. ...
in 1981. A total of 2.8 million units were shipped between the two models, many at bargain basement prices resulting from a price war with Commodore in 1982-83, before the TI-99/4A was discontinued in March 1984.


VIC-20 and Commodore 64

Realizing that the PET could not easily compete with color machines like the Apple II and Atari, Commodore introduced the
VIC-20 The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PE ...
in 1980 to address the home market. The tiny 5 KB memory and its relatively limited display in comparison to those machines was offset by a low and ever falling price. Millions of VIC-20s were sold. The best-selling personal computer of all time was released by
Commodore International Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...
in 1982. The
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
sold over 17 million units. The C64 name derived from its 64 KB of RAM. It used the 6510 microprocessor, a variant of the 6502, made by
MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is mo ...
then owned by Commodore.


BBC Micro

The BBC became interested in running a computer literacy series, and sent out a tender for a standardized small computer to be used with the show. After examining several entrants, they selected what was then known as the Acorn Proton and made a number of minor changes to produce the
BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...
. The Micro was relatively expensive, which limited its commercial appeal, but with widespread marketing, BBC support and wide variety of programs, the system eventually sold as many as 1.5 million units. Acorn was rescued from obscurity, and went on to develop the
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
processor (''Acorn RISC Machine'') to power follow-on designs. The ARM is widely used to this day, powering a wide variety of products like the iPhone. ARM processors also run the Fugaku, one of the world's fastest supercomputers. The Micro is not to be confused with the BBC Micro Bit, another BBC microcomputer released in March 2016.


Commodore/Atari price war and crash

In 1982, the TI 99/4A and Atari 400 were both $349, Radio Shack's
Color Computer The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Com ...
sold at $379, and Commodore had reduced the price of the VIC-20 to $199 and the Commodore 64 to $499 shortly after C64 release.Ahl, David H. (1984 November)
The first decade of personal computing
''Creative Computing'', vol. 10, no. 11: p. 30.
In the early 1970s, Texas Instruments had forced Commodore from the calculator market by dropping the price of its own-brand calculators to less than the cost of the chipsets it sold to third parties to make the same design. Commodore's CEO,
Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home compute ...
, vowed that this would not happen again, and purchased
MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is mo ...
in 1976 to ensure a supply of chips. With his supply guaranteed, and good control over the component pricing, Tramiel launched a war against Texas Instruments soon after the introduction of the Commodore 64.
Vertically integrated In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply ...
, Commodore lowered the retail price of the C64 to $300 at the June 1983
Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
, and stores sold it for as little as $199. At one point the company was selling as many computers as the rest of the industry combined. Commodore—which even discontinued
list price The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer ...
s—could make a profit when selling the C64 for a retail price of $200 because of vertical integration. Competitors also reduced prices; the Atari 800's price in July was $165, and by the time Texas Instruments was ready in 1983 to introduce the 99/2 computer—designed to sell for $99—the TI-99/4A sold for $99 in June. The 99/4A had sold for $400 in the fall of 1982, causing a loss for Texas Instruments of hundreds of millions of dollars. A
Service Merchandise Service Merchandise was a retail chain of catalog showrooms carrying jewelry, toys, sporting goods, and electronics. The company, which first began in 1934 as a five-and-dime store, was in existence for 68 years before ceasing operations in 2002. ...
executive stated, "I've been in retailing 30 years and I have never seen any category of goods get on a self-destruct pattern like this." Such low prices probably hurt home computers' reputation; one retail executive said of the 99/4A, '"When they went to $99, people started asking 'What's wrong with it?'" The founder of ''
Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
'' stated in 1986 that "our market dropped from 300 percent growth per year to 20 percent". While Tramiel's target was TI, all competitors in the home computer market were hurt by the process; many companies went bankrupt or exited the business. In the end, even Commodore's own finances were crippled by the demands of financing the massive building expansion needed to deliver the machines, and Tramiel was forced from the company.


Japanese computers

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
's personal computer market was largely dominated by domestic computer products.
NEC is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It prov ...
became the market leader following the release of the
PC-8001 The is a line of personal computers developed for the Japanese market by NEC. The PC-8001 model was also sold in the United States and Canada as the PC-8001A. Original models of the NEC PC-8001B (or sometimes the NEC PC-8000) were also sold in so ...
in 1979, continuing with the 8-bit
PC-88 The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in Japan. The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japane ...
and 16-bit
PC-98 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more ...
series in the 1980s, but had early competition from the Sharp MZ and series, and later competition from the 8-bit FM-7, Fujitsu FM-7, Sharp X1, MSX and MSX2 series and 16-bit FM Towns and Sharp X68000 series. Several of these systems were also released in Europe, MSX in particular gaining some popularity there. A key difference between early Western and Japanese systems was the latter's higher display resolutions (640x200 from 1979, and 640x400 from 1985) in order to accommodate Japanese writing system, Japanese text. Japanese computers also from the early 1980s employed Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha Frequency modulation synthesis, FM synthesis Sound card, sound boards which produce higher quality sound. Japanese computers were widely used to produce video games, though only a small portion of Japanese PC games were released outside of the country. Reprinted from The most successful Japanese personal computer was NEC's PC-98, which sold more than 18 million units by 1999.


The IBM PC

IBM responded to the success of the
Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
with the IBM PC, released in August 1981. Like the Apple II and S-100 systems, it was based on an open, card-based architecture, which allowed third parties to develop for it. It used the Intel 8088 CPU running at 4.77 MHz, containing 29,000 transistors. The first model used an audio cassette for external storage, though there was an expensive floppy disk option. The cassette option was never popular and was removed in the IBM Personal Computer XT, PC XT of 1983. The XT added a 10 MB hard drive in place of one of the two floppy disks and increased the number of expansion slots from 5 to 8. While the original PC design could accommodate only up to 64 KB on the main board, the architecture was able to accommodate up to 640 KB of RAM, with the rest on cards. Later revisions of the design increased the limit to 256 KB on the main board. The IBM PC typically came with PC DOS, an operating system based on
Gary Kildall Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, a ...
's CP/M-80 operating system. In 1980, IBM approached
Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and ...
, Kildall's company, for a version of CP/M for its upcoming IBM PC. Kildall's wife and business partner, Dorothy McEwen, met with the IBM representatives who were unable to negotiate a standard non-disclosure agreement with her. IBM turned to Bill Gates, who was already providing the
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
BASIC interpreter for the PC. Gates offered to provide 86-DOS, developed by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products. IBM rebranded it as PC DOS, while Microsoft sold variations and upgrades as MS-DOS. The impact of the Apple II and the IBM PC was fully demonstrated when ''Time'' named the home computer the "Machine of the Year", or Time Magazine Person of the Year, Person of the Year for 1982 (3 January 1983, "The Computer Moves In"). It was the first time in the history of the magazine that an inanimate object was given this award.


IBM PC clones

The original PC design was followed up in 1983 by the IBM Personal Computer XT, IBM PC XT, which was an incrementally improved design; it omitted support for the cassette, had more card slots, and was available with a 10MB hard drive. Although mandatory at first, the hard drive was later made an option and a two floppy disk XT was sold. While the architectural memory limit of 640K was the same, later versions were more readily expandable. Although the PC and XT included a version of the BASIC language in read-only memory, most were purchased with disk drives and run with an operating system; three operating systems were initially announced with the PC. One was CP/M-86 from Digital Research, the second was PC DOS from IBM, and the third was the UCSD p-System (from the University of California at San Diego). PC DOS was the IBM branded version of an operating system from
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, previously best known for supplying BASIC language systems to computer hardware companies. When sold by Microsoft, PC DOS was called MS-DOS. The UCSD p-System OS was built around the Pascal (programming language), Pascal programming language and was not marketed to the same niche as IBM's customers. Neither the p-System nor CP/M-86 was a commercial success. Because MS-DOS was available as a separate product, some companies attempted to make computers available which could run MS-DOS and programs. These early machines, including the Apricot PC, ACT Apricot, the Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC Rainbow 100, the
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
HP-150, the Seequa Chameleon and many others were not especially successful, as they required a customized version of MS-DOS, and could not run programs designed specifically for IBM's hardware. (See Influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market#x86-based systems (using a generic form of MS-DOS), List of early non-IBM-PC-compatible PCs.) The first truly IBM PC compatible machines came from Compaq, although others soon followed. Because the IBM PC was based on relatively standard integrated circuits, and the basic card-slot design was not patented, the key portion of that hardware was actually the BIOS software embedded in read-only memory. This critical element got reverse engineered, and that opened the floodgates to the market for IBM PC imitators, which were dubbed "PC clones". At the time that IBM had decided to enter the personal computer market in response to Apple's early success, IBM was the giant of the computer industry and was expected to crush Apple's market share. But because of these shortcuts that IBM took to enter the market quickly, they ended up releasing a product that was easily copied by other manufacturers using off the shelf, non-proprietary parts. So in the long run, IBM's biggest role in the evolution of the personal computer was to establish the de facto standard for hardware architecture amongst a wide range of manufacturers. IBM's pricing was undercut to the point where IBM was no longer the significant force in development, leaving only the PC standard they had established. Emerging as the dominant force from this battle amongst hardware manufacturers who were vying for market share was the ''software company'' Microsoft that provided the operating system and utilities to all PCs across the board, whether authentic IBM machines or the PC clones. In 1984, IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer/AT (more often called the PC/AT or AT) built around the Intel 80286 microprocessor. This chip was much faster, and could address up to 16MB of RAM but only in a mode that largely broke compatibility with the earlier 8086 and 8088. In particular, the MS-DOS operating system was not able to take advantage of this capability. The bus in the PC/AT was given the name Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) was released in 1992, and was supposed to replace ISA. VESA Local Bus (VLB) and Extended ISA were also displaced by PCI, but a majority of later (post-1992) 486-based systems were featuring a VESA Local Bus video card. VLB importantly offered a less costly high speed interface for consumer systems, as only by 1994 was PCI commonly available outside of the server market. PCI is later replaced by PCI-E (see below).


Apple Lisa and Macintosh

In 1983
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
introduced the first mass-marketed microcomputer with a graphical user interface, the Apple Lisa, Lisa. The Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000 microprocessor and came equipped with 1 megabyte of RAM, a black-and-white monitor, dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives and a 5 megabyte Profile hard drive. The Lisa's slow operating speed and high price (US$10,000), however, led to its commercial failure. Drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple launched the Apple Macintosh, Macintosh in 1984, with an 1984 (advertisement), advertisement during the Super Bowl. The Macintosh was the first successful mass-market
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
-driven computer with a
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
or 'WIMP' (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa's features at a price of US$2,495. The Macintosh was introduced with 128 KB of RAM and later that year a 512 KB RAM model became available. To reduce costs compared the Lisa, the year-younger Macintosh had a simplified motherboard design, no internal hard drive, and a single 3.5" floppy drive. Applications that came with the Macintosh included MacPaint, a bit-mapped graphics program, and MacWrite, which demonstrated WYSIWYG word processing. While not a success upon its release, the Macintosh was a successful personal computer for years to come. This is particularly due to the introduction of desktop publishing in 1985 through Apple's partnership with Adobe Systems, Adobe. This partnership introduced the LaserWriter printer and Adobe PageMaker, Aldus PageMaker to users of the personal computer. During
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
' hiatus from Apple, a number of different models of Macintosh, including the Macintosh Plus and Macintosh II, were released to a great degree of success. The entire Macintosh line of computers was IBM's major competition up until the early 1990s.


GUIs spread

In the Commodore world, GEOS (8-bit operating system), GEOS was available on the
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
and Commodore 128. Later, GEOS (16-bit operating system), a version was available for PCs running DOS. It could be used with a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
or a joystick as a pointing device, and came with a suite of GUI applications. Commodore's later product line, the Amiga platform, ran a GUI operating system by default. The Amiga laid the blueprint for future development of personal computers with its groundbreaking graphics and sound capabilities. ''Byte (magazine), Byte'' called it "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody could fully articulate what it was all about." In 1985, the Atari ST, also based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was introduced with the first color GUI: Digital Research's Graphics Environment Manager, GEM. In 1987, Acorn Computers Ltd, Acorn launched the Acorn Archimedes, Archimedes range of high-performance home computers in Europe and Australasia. Based on their own 32-bit
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
RISC processor, the systems were shipped with a GUI OS called Arthur (operating system), Arthur. In 1989, Arthur was superseded by a multi-tasking GUI-based operating system called RISC OS. By default, the mice used on these computers had three buttons.


PC clones dominate

The transition from a PC-compatible market being driven by IBM to one driven primarily by a broader market began to become clear in 1986 and 1987; in 1986, the 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor was released, and the first '386-based PC-compatible was the Compaq Deskpro 386. IBM's response came nearly a year later with the initial release of the IBM Personal System/2 series of computers, which had a closed architecture and were a significant departure from the emerging "standard PC". These models were largely unsuccessful, and the IBM PC compatible, PC Clone style machines outpaced sales of all other machines through the rest of this period. Toward the end of the 1980s PC XT clones began to take over the home computer market segment from the specialty manufacturers such as
Commodore International Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...
and
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
that had previously dominated. These systems typically sold for just under the "magic" $1000 price point (typically $999) and were sold via mail order rather than a traditional dealer network. This price was achieved by using the older 8/16 bit technology, such as the Intel 8088, 8088 CPU, instead of the 32-bits of the latest Intel CPUs. These CPUs were usually made by a third party such as Cyrix or AMD. Dell started out as one of these manufacturers, under its original name PC Limited.


1990s onward


NeXT

In 1990, the NeXTstation workstation computer went on sale, for "interpersonal" computing as Steve Jobs described it. The NeXTstation was meant to be a new computer for the 1990s, and was a cheaper version of the previous NeXT Computer. Despite its pioneering use of Object-oriented programming concepts, the NeXTstation was somewhat a commercial failure, and NeXT shut down hardware operations in 1993.


CD-ROM

In the early 1990s, the CD-ROM became an Technical standard, industry standard, and by the mid-1990s one was built into almost all desktop computers, and toward the end of the 1990s, in laptops as well. Although introduced in 1982, the CD ROM was mostly used for Sound recording and reproduction, audio during the 1980s, and then for computer data such as
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s and applications into the 1990s. Another popular use of CD ROMs in the 1990s was multimedia, as many desktop computers started to come with built-in stereo speakers capable of playing CD quality music and sounds with the Sound Blaster sound card on PCs.


ThinkPad

IBM introduced its successful ThinkPad range at COMDEX 1992 using the series designators 300, 500 and 700 (allegedly analogous to the BMW car range and used to indicate market), the 300 series being the "budget", the 500 series "midrange" and the 700 series "high end". This designation continued until the late 1990s when IBM introduced the "T" series as 600/700 series replacements, and the 3, 5 and 7 series model designations were phased out for A (3&7) & X (5) series. The A series was later partially replaced by the R series.


Dell

By the mid-1990s, Amiga, Commodore and Atari systems were no longer on the market, pushed out by strong IBM PC clone competition and low prices. Other previous competition such as Sinclair Research Ltd, Sinclair and
Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad ...
were no longer in the computer market. With less competition than ever before, Dell rose to high profits and success, introducing low cost systems targeted at consumers and business markets using a direct-sales model. Dell surpassed Compaq as the world's largest computer manufacturer, and held that position until October 2006.


Power Macintosh, PowerPC

In 1994, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh series of high-end professional desktop computers for desktop publishing and graphic designers. These new computers made use of new Motorola PowerPC processors as part of the AIM alliance, to replace the previous Motorola 68k architecture used for the Macintosh line. During the 1990s, the Macintosh remained with a low market share, but as the primary choice for creative professionals, particularly those in the graphics and publishing industries.


ARM

In 1994, Acorn Computers launched its Risc PC series of high-end desktop computers. The Risc PC (codenamed Medusa) was Acorn's next generation ARM (architecture), ARM-based RISC OS computer, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes. In 2005, the ARM Cortex-A8 was released, the first Cortex design to be adopted on a large scale for use in consumer devices. An ARM-based processor is used in the Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive
single-board computer A single-board computer (SBC) is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor(s), memory, input/output (I/O) and other features required of a functional computer. Single-board computers are commonly made as demonstrati ...
.


IBM clones, Apple back into profitability

Due to the sales growth of IBM clones in the '90s, they became the industry standard for business and home use. This growth was augmented by the introduction of Microsoft's Windows 3.0 operating environment in 1990, and followed by Windows 3.1 in 1992 and the Windows 95 operating system in 1995. The Macintosh was sent into a period of decline by these developments coupled with Apple's own inability to come up with a successor to the Macintosh operating system, and by 1996 Apple was almost bankrupt. In December 1996 Apple bought NeXT and in what has been described as a "reverse takeover",
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
returned to Apple in 1997. The NeXT purchase and Jobs' return brought Apple back to profitability, first with the release of Mac OS 8, a major new version of the operating system for Macintosh computers, and then with the PowerMac G3 and iMac computers for the professional and home markets. The iMac was notable for its transparent bondi blue casing in an ergonomic shape, as well as its discarding of legacy devices such as a floppy drive and serial ports in favor of
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
and USB connectivity. The iMac sold several million units and a subsequent model using a different Computer form factor, form factor remains in production as of August 2017. In 2001 Mac OS X, the long-awaited "next generation" Mac OS based on the NeXT technologies was finally introduced by Apple, cementing its comeback.


Writable CDs, MP3, P2P file sharing

The ROM in CD-ROM stands for Read Only Memory. In the late 1990s CD-R and later, rewritable CD-RW drives were included instead of standard CD ROM drives. This gave the personal computer user the capability to copy and "burn" standard Red Book (audio CD standard), Audio CDs which were playable in any CD player. As computer hardware grew more powerful and the MP3 format became pervasive, "ripping" CDs into small, compressed files on a computer's hard drive became popular. peer-to-peer networks such as Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella arose to be used almost exclusively for sharing music files and became a primary computer activity for many individuals.


USB, DVD player

Since the late 1990s, many more personal computers started shipping that included USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports for easy plug and play connectivity to devices such as digital cameras, video cameras, personal digital assistants, Computer printer, printers, Image scanner, scanners, USB flash drives and other peripheral devices. By the early 21st century, all shipping computers for the consumer market included at least two USB ports. Also during the late 1990s DVD players started appearing on high-end, usually more expensive, desktop and laptop computers, and eventually on consumer computers into the first decade of the 21st century.


Hewlett-Packard

In 2002,
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
(HP) purchased Compaq. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
in 1998. Following this strategy HP became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. The buyout made HP the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, until Dell later surpassed HP.


64 bits

In 2003, AMD shipped its 64-bit based
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
line for desktop computers, Opteron and Athlon 64. Also in 2003, IBM released the 64-bit based PowerPC 970 for Apple's high-end Power Mac G5 systems.
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
, in 2004, reacted to AMD's success with 64-bit based processors, releasing updated versions of their Xeon and Pentium 4 lines. 64-bit processors were first common in high end systems, Server (computing), servers and
workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...
s, and then gradually replaced 32-bit processors in consumer desktop and laptop systems since about 2005.


Lenovo

In 2004, IBM announced the proposed sale of its PC business to Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group, which is partially owned by the Chinese government, for US$650 million in cash and $600 million US in Lenovo stock. The deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States in March 2005, and completed in May 2005. IBM will have a 19% stake in Lenovo, which will move its headquarters to New York State and appoint an IBM executive as its chief executive officer. The company will retain the right to use certain IBM brand names for an initial period of five years. As a result of the purchase, Lenovo inherited a product line that featured the ThinkPad, a line of laptops that had been one of IBM's most successful products.


Wi-Fi, LCD monitor, flash memory

In the early 21st century, Wi-Fi began to become increasingly popular as many consumers started installing their own wireless home networks. Many of today's laptops and desktop computers are sold pre-installed with wireless cards and Antenna (radio), antennas. Also in the early 21st century, LCD monitors became the most popular technology for computer monitors, with CRT production being slowed down. LCD monitors are typically sharper, brighter, and more economical than CRT monitors. The first decade of the 21st century also saw the rise of multi-core processors (see following section) and flash memory. Once limited to high-end industrial use due to expense, these technologies are now mainstream and available to consumers. In 2008 the MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC were released, laptops that dispense with an optical drive and hard drive entirely relying on flash memory for storage.


Local area networks

The invention in the late 1970s of local area networks (LANs), notably
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
, allowed PCs to communicate with each other (peer-to-peer) and with shared printers. As the microcomputer revolution continued, more robust versions of the same technology were used to produce
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
based Server (computing), servers that could also be linked to the local area network, LAN. This was facilitated by the development of server
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s to run on the
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
computer architecture, architecture, including several versions of both Unix and Microsoft Windows.


Multiprocessing

In May 2005, Intel and AMD released their first dual-core 64-bit processors, the Pentium D and the Athlon 64 X2 respectively. Multi-core processors can be programmed and reasoned about using symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) techniques known since the 60s (see the SMP article for details). Apple switches to Intel in 2006, also thereby gaining multiprocessing. In 2013, a Xeon Phi extension card is released with 57 x86 cores, at a price of $1695, equalling circa 30 dollars per core.


PCI-E

PCI Express is released in 2003. It becomes the most commonly used bus in PC-compatible desktop computers.


Cheap 3D graphics

The rise of cheap 3D accelerators displaced low-end products of Silicon Graphics (SGI), which went bankrupt in 2009. Silicon Graphics was a major 3D business that had grown annual revenues of $5.4 million to $3.7 billion from 1984 to 1997. The addition of 3D graphic capabilities to Personal computer, PCs, and the ability of clusters of Linux- and Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD-based PCs to take on many of the tasks of larger SGI servers, ate into SGI's core markets. Three former SGI employees had founded 3dfx in 1994. Their Voodoo Graphics extension card relied on PCI to provide cheap 3D graphics for PC's. Towards the end of 1996, the cost of Dynamic random-access memory#Extended data out DRAM (EDO DRAM), EDO DRAM dropped significantly. A card consisted of a Digital-to-analog converter, DAC, a frame buffer processor and a texture mapping unit, along with 4 MB of EDO DRAM. The RAM and graphics processors operated at 50 MHz. It provided only 3D acceleration and as such the computer also needed a traditional video controller for conventional 2D software. NVIDIA bought 3dfx in 2000. In 2000, NVIDIA grew revenues 96%. SGI had made OpenGL. Control of the specification was passed to the Khronos Group in 2006.


SDRAM

In 1993, Samsung introduced its KM48SL2000 synchronous DRAM, and by 2000, SDRAM had replaced virtually all other types of DRAM in modern computers, because of its greater performance. For more information see Synchronous dynamic random-access memory#SDRAM history. Double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory (DDR SDRAM) is introduced in 2000. Compared to its predecessor in PC-clones, single data rate (SDRAM#SDR SDRAM, SDR) SDRAM, the DDR SDRAM interface makes higher transfer rates possible by more strict control of the timing of the electrical data and clock signals.


ACPI

Released in December 1996, ACPI replaced Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification. Internally, ACPI advertises the available components and their functions to the operating system kernel using instruction lists ("methods") provided through the system firmware (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or BIOS), which the kernel parses. ACPI then executes the desired operations (such as the initialization of hardware components) using an embedded minimal virtual machine. First-generation ACPI hardware had issues. Windows 98 first edition disabled ACPI by default except on a whitelist of systems.


2010s


Semiconductor fabrication

In 2011,
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
announced the commercialisation of Multigate device#Tri-gate transistor, Tri-gate transistor. The Tri-Gate design is a variant of the FinFET 3D structure. FinFET was developed in the 1990s by Chenming Hu and his colleagues at UC Berkeley. Through-silicon via is used in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a successor of DDR-SDRAM. HBM was released in 2013. In 2016 and 2017, Intel, TSMC and Samsung begin releasing 10 nanometer chips. At the ≈10 nm scale, quantum tunneling (especially through gaps) becomes a significant phenomenon.


2020s

In May 2022, Chinese officials ordered government agencies and state-backed companies to remove personal computers produced by American corporations and replace them with equipment from domestic companies. The state-mandated order is expected to result in the removal of about 50 million computers, with HP and Dell expected to lose the most future business from the mandate.


Market size

In 2001, 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48,000 in 1977. More than 500 million PCs were in use in 2002 and one 1,000,000,000 (number), billion personal computers had been sold worldwide since mid-1970s till this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of PCs shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent laptops and 2.1 percent Server (computing), servers. United States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had gone to Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002. Almost half of all the households in Western Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom, compared with only 13 percent in 1985. The third quarter of 2008 marked the first time laptops outsold desktop PCs in the United States. As of June 2008, the number of personal computers worldwide in use hit one billion. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. About 180 million PCs (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.


See also

* History of laptops * History of mobile phones * History of software * Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering * Computer museum and Personal Computer Museum * Expensive Desk Calculator * MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory * Educ-8 a 1974 pre-microprocessor "micro-computer" *
Mark-8 The Mark-8 is a microcomputer design from 1974, based on the Intel 8008 CPU (which was the world's first 8-bit microprocessor). The Mark-8 was designed by Jonathan Titus, a Virginia Tech graduate student in Chemistry. After building the machine ...
, a 1974 microprocessor-based microcomputer * SCELBI, another 1974 microcomputer * Simon (computer), a 1949 demonstration of computing principles * List of pioneers in computer science


References


Further reading

* * * * * *


External links


A history of the personal computer:
the people and the technology (PDF)
BlinkenLights Archaeological Institute – Personal Computer Milestones

Personal Computer Museum
– A Personal Computer Museum, publicly viewable museum in Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Old Computers Museum
– Displaying over 100 historic machines.
Chronology of Personal Computers
– a chronology of computers from 1947 on
"Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures"

Obsolete Technology – Old Computers
{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Personal Computers History of computing hardware Personal computers History of computing History of Silicon Valley