Popular Electronics - Personal Computers

Personal Computers

There is debate about what machine was the first personal computer, the Altair 8800 (1975), the Mark-8 (1974), or even back to Kenbak-1 (1971). The computer in the January 1975 issue of captured the attention of the 400,000 or so readers of Popular Electronics. Before then, home computers were lucky to sell a hundred units. The Altair sold thousands in the first year. By the end of 1975 there were a dozen companies producing computer kits and peripherals.

The February 1975 issue featured an 'All Solid-State TV Camera" by three Stanford University students; Terry Walker, Harry Garland and Roger Melen. While the camera kit was designed to use an oscilloscope the article mentions it could be connected to the Altair computer. It soon was, the authors got one of the first Altair computers and designed an interface for the camera. They also designed a full color video display for the Altair, "The TV Dazzler", that appeared on the cover of the February 1976 issue. This was the start of Cromemco, a computer company that grew to over 500 employees by 1983.

The internet did not exist in 1975 but time-sharing computers did. With a computer terminal and a modem a user could dial into a large multi-user computer. Lee Felsenstein wanted make low cost versions of modems and terminals available to hobbyist. The March 1976 issue had the "Pennywhistle Modem" and the July 1976 issue had the "SOL Intelligent Terminal" The SOL, built by Processor Technology, was really an Altair compatible computer and became one of the most successful personal computers at that time.

Popular Electronics had many other computer projects such as the Altair 680, the Speechlab voice recognition board and the COSMAC ELF. They did not have the field to themselves. A dedicated computer magazine, Byte, was started in September 1975. It was soon followed by other new magazines. By the end of 1977, fully assembled computers such as Apple II, Radio Shack TRS-80, and the Commodore PET were on the market. Building computer kits was soon replaced by plugging in assembled boards.