world's first home computer?

[esllou]

what would you say it was?

need this info.

I would like to focus on the "home" part of the thing....size, mobility, etc

zx80 from sinclair in 1980.

or would you have to go back a few years to Altair?

comments?

[Macguru]

I would say it was the Apple ][, in 1977. Before that, it was hobbyists experiments with microchips.

By the way Wozniak invented the term "Personal Computer" in 76 with the Apple ¦.

[bcolflesh]

[old-computers.com...]

[esllou]

thanks for that

from what I have read there, will plump for the Apple II

thanks again guys...

[olwen]

I was just thinking if there was an Apple II there must have been an Apple 1.

and found:
"Apple Computer was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne. The Apple I was introduced at the Homebrew Computer Club in May with Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop ordering 50 units at $500 apiece."

[applefritter.com...]

[esllou]

yeah, I looked into it and it was a bit of a non starter, so I think I will plump for the II

[bcolflesh]

plump for the...

What kind of slang is this? Where are you from?

[Macguru]

Yeah, the Apple ¦ was just a board, with no screen nor keyboard. The Altair was relatively the same thing, but included in a case with blinking lights.

You can get a picture of an assembled Altair kit and more info here.

[usatoday.com...]

It was the first real push to get personal computers into the home," Garcia says. "(Radio Shack's) TRS-80, the Commodore PET and the Apple II all appeared within four months of each other (in 1977).

[esllou]

UK

even the guardian uses it!

[guardian.co.uk...]

[bcolflesh]

A company called Ball Park Franks in the US uses the slogan:

"...they plump when you cook em'"

So plump is associated w/ cooking hotdogs in my television addled mind.

[HelenDev]

mmm, hotdogs

[esllou]

[abc.net.au...]

[bcolflesh]

I'd really enjoying cooking most political canidates, rather than support them - so I'm sticking with my hotdogs (dogs on a stick?)

[choster]

plump for

What kind of slang is this?

I think it is primarily British but I have heard it commonly used in the US, especially in the South.

[grandpa]

I grew up in the south... well, Texas anyway. Never heard any of ya'll use that phrase. Then again, my eyes *might* be bigger than my brain.

I always thought the TRS-80 was the first real effort to get PC's into the home. Before that I only remember the kits.

[GeorgeGG]

I grew up/live in the South and 'plump for' is not something I know of :)

Before that I only remember the kits.

Like:
[canufly.net...]

GeorgeGG

[Skier]

The first computer I was able to actually purchase for my own home use was a sinclair zx80. Not sure if it was all I could afford, or it was the only one available.

I still have it, and it still works. It came with 1k memory I believe. It soon got a 4k memory expansion which is still duct taped onto the back.

Learned to program in Basic on it, wrote little games, saved 'em on audio tape.

Doesn't seem that long ago - but I guess it was.

Thanks for the nostalgia hit.

[moltar]

This is not a first home computer, but still cool... Have a look at this [cooler.irk.ru]. Device name reads: Oscillograph C1-55. And, no, it is not a collage, it's a real thing.

[jdMorgan]

I'll vote for the DigiComp - A mechanical digital computer made of oddly-shaped plastic parts and metal actuator rods, which could be programmed by changing some of the parts. It counted in binary to 11 - that's 3 in decimal. It was available in toy stores in the U.S. in the mid-60's.

So that's my candidate, although I have a working IMSAI 8080 system 6ft behind me a to my left - It was sort of an Altair clone, but improved. It has a 12-slot S-100 backplane, 4MHz Z80 CPU (I upgraded it), 8 9600-baud serial channels, four 8-inch floppy disks (192kB each), front panel with switches and blinking lights, CP/M operating system, and a whopping 48kB of RAM! I power it up when visitors start bragging on their latest PC. ;)

I knew a few dozen people who had these things, so it all depends on where you draw the line on quantities sold and capabilities - i.e. is a general-purpose OS, disks, keyboard, and CRT display required to constitute a "home computer"? Oh, three choices for programming: assembly language, BASIC, or ForTran... :)

Jim

[grandpa]

Oh, three choices for programming: assembly language, BASIC, or ForTran

What about DOS? I ran a bbs with batch files.

[lgn1]

I did a check to see if any Apple I's were for sale.

They go for between $40-$50 thousand. There is only
about 40 left in existence.

Not a bad return on investment.

[Larryhat]

Hi all: I started off with a Commodore Pet with
(wow!) 8 whole kilobytes of RAM. I wrote two books
of games (second one for the Commodore 64) and went
on to a home-brew Z-80 S100 'mainframe'.

I think its semantics which was the first
"Personal Computer". For me, the first thing
that got me into those weird "typewriter televisions"
was the 8K Pet. It didn't live as long as my dog,
but it didn't pee on the floor either.

-Larry

[snowman]

I still remember those old Heathkit computers with the paper-tape readers (pre-floppy disk storage). Around the same time as the "Super ELF". Boy does that bring back memories!

[Brett_Tabke]

How about the Commodore Kim:

[obsoletecomputermuseum.org...]

[jim_w]

My 1st was ZX81, when they were 1st released. I max’ed it out. 64k, stringy floppy (rabbit), tape, 2 printers, (theirs and a 3rd party that printed on white thermal paper), serial, parallel, moved the board into a Jamco keyboard box so it would stop crashing while I was typing, put in an Atari 800 computer keyboard and hacked a couple of Atari joysticks into the keyboard, and hooked a Speak-N-Spell into it. I had the bloody thing spider-webbed across a table that was 3’x 5’ with ribbon wire. The last thing I did before selling it was I purchased an old Dow Jones serial hammer printer that used rolled paper.

I wouldn’t call the Apple the 1st home computer for the price at the time was more than one could justify. What was it selling for? $3000.00? What software was out for the Apple? The Apple ][ had a lot more software and was less, but the Apple ][ kits were what I saw most of in the homes. We called them the Japples.

[Macguru]

>>I wouldn’t call the Apple the 1st home computer for the price at the time was more than one could justify. What was it selling for? $3000.00?

I would, because it was. It was selling for $1,295.

>>What software was out for the Apple?

At that time, any software for CPM or DOS would run on it. Actually, you had to write your own in 1977... ;)

The ZX81 was introduced a year after the the Apple ][ was DISCONTINUED four years after it's introduction. So I guess your bashing the wrong Apple box. :)

[victor]

Honeywell got there in 1968. Though it was a little pricey:

[starfish.osfn.org...]

[Macguru]

victor, that's a good one. First time, I ever hear about it.

>>Though it was a little pricey:

Hey, dont forget it came with a cookbook, and an apron. :)

[jim_w]

Macguru:

>>I guess your bashing the wrong Apple box

I didn’t realize I was ‘bashing’ any boxes. I stopped doing that when I was 25. Every box has things it does better than any other box.

>>I would, because it was. It was selling for $1,295.

Hummm! I remember them being $3000.00 when I priced them. And my ‘cube mate’ at Motorola had to wait till the ][ came out due to the fact that even with electrical engineering pay, he couldn’t justify it.

>>At that time, any software for CPM or DOS would run on it. Actually, you had to write your own in 1977... ;)

Exactly my point. Were there really any ‘HOME’ computers prior to affordable software for them? I guess if you think of a ‘HOME’ computer as any computer besides a PDP11 or something else that ran on 220, then your opinion may differ from mine.

>>The ZX81 was introduced a year after the Apple ][ was DISCONTINUED four years after it's introduction

So what year are you saying the ZX81 was introduced? What year are you saying the Apple ][ was DISCONTINUED?

[Macguru]

As far as I know, the Timex/Sinclair ZX81 was introduced in 1981 and the Apple ][ was discontinued in 1980. It was selling for 1,295 $ in 1977.

The first Macintosh was selling for about 3k in 1984.

I saw sites selling brand new ZX81 kits for less than 100 $.

In 1977, the Apple ][ could run most software available. :)