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?

[jim_w]

Macguru:

According to …

[applemuseum.bott.org...]

‘The Apple II was finally discontinued in 1982, but still has not died.’

Yes the ZX81 did come out in 1981, however according to …

[imarshall.karoo.net...]

‘The software for the ZX81 was abundant and pushed the machine to it's limit.’

So that was my point.

[Macguru]

If you want to believe the ZX81 was the first home computer because it was cheap and had plenty of software, fine. It all depends on the definition "home computer", I guess.

As for the year of termination of the Apple ][, it is irrelevant. But I can find hudreds of links :

Terminated: 1980

[apple-history.com...]

Introduced: 1977
Discontinued: 1980

[theapplemuseum.com...]

But then if you define the Apple ][ as the whole line of Apple ]['s

Apple ][
Apple ][+
Apple IIc
Apple IIgs

Then I guess it can go later. I bought my Apple ][ gs woz limited edition in the mid '80's

[jim_w]

>>gs woz limited edition in the mid '80's

Wow. Do you still have it? I'll bet it would be worth a few bucks these days. Not to use, but to collect, like a coin.

[edit]Did you ever join the APDA?[/edit]

[Macguru]

>>Wow. Do you still have it?

Of course, I kept all Apple computers I purchased for personnal use ( my little garage museum ). I also kept my first computer ever ; a CoCo (TRS 80) from Radio Shack. Bought it in late 1980.

My Apple ][ GS Woz limited edition is still in perfect working condition. All the original floppies (real floppies) all went south over time, but all the goodies are stored on a gigantic 20 meg SCSI drive.

>>Not to use, but to collect, like a coin.

I guess I could get a few hundreds from it on eBay, since it does not have a real collector value yet. It's just a curios.

I saw one original Macintosh in mint condition with original software, manuals and crate going for 12 k in the year 2000.

>>Did you ever join the APDA?

No just a member of my local MUG.

[bantam]

I started using a TRS80 way back when I was like, 2, so I didn't understand it much. But in a few years my dad, who was MR Computer Man back then, got the newest, flashiest computer ever - the first tiny Mac.

Right now I still have a working Macintosh SE that I occasionally boot just to relive the good ol' days of the six inch b/w screen with the comforting whirr/chunk of the hard drive.

As a side note, I was getting online with that computer to AOL and BBSs until late 1998. It was merely for home use because we had the best of the best at my high school, but I was a novelty among the BBSs because I was the only one logging on at 2400.

[jim_w]

bantam

2400 baud. I remember dialing into a PDP11 with my Comodore64’s pulse dial modem @ 300 baud and running WordStar and DbaseII