Bob Albrecht is a key figure in the early history of microcomputers. He was one of the founders of the

People's Computer Company People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the ''People's Computer Company Newsletter'') and, later, a quasiperiodical called the ''Dragonsmoke''. PCC was founded and produced by Dennis Allison, Bob Albrecht and George Fir ...

and its associated newsletters which turned into '' Dr. Dobb's Journal.'' He also brought the first Altair 8800 to 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 asp ...

and was one of the main supporters of the effort to make

Tiny BASIC Tiny BASIC is a family of Programming language#Dialects, flavors and implementations, dialects of the BASIC programming language that can fit into 4 or fewer kilobyte, KBs of random-access memory, memory. Tiny BASIC was designed in response to th ...

a standard on many early machines. Albrecht has authored a number of books on BASIC and other computer topics. He is mentioned as one of the "who's who" in

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and Editor at Large for ''Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 book ...

's '' Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution''.

Career

In 1955 Albrecht was studying for a master's degree when he quit for a job at the Minneapolis-Honeywell Aeronautical Division in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, which had entered the computer market in April that year. He was working in a large room of engineers on flight control systems for high-speed jet aircraft using analog techniques. After a few months he was invited to join work on an IBM 650 drum computer, with the intention that he would then promote the use of the computer amongst his erstwhile analog-working co workers. In 1962, while working for Control Data Corporation as a senior applications analyst, he was asked to give a talk at George Washington High School in Denver. This incident prompted a career change after his interest was triggered by the young learners' response.

People's Computer Company

After Albrecht left his job at Control Data Corporation, he became involved with an educational nonprofit organization called

Portola Institute The Portola Institute was a "nonprofit educational foundation" founded in Menlo Park, California in 1966 by Dick Raymond. The Portola institute helped to develop other organizations such as ''The Briarpatch Society'' and Bob Albrecht's ''Peopl ...

. Albrecht launched his project called People's Computer Company in October 1972. It is not a company but a newsletter that took its name in honor of Janis Joplin's band,

Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...

. The newsletter operated with a walk-in storefront to teach children "about having fun with computers". A spinoff newsletter was called ''Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia''. Albrecht's computer-book publishing company Dymax also brought computing to the people by teaching young students to program.

Career

People's Computer Company

References

Further reading