subject:"Re\:"

[cctalk] Re: First Personal Computer

2024-05-25 Thread Mike Katz via cctalk

You see, we are back to my original comment.  The definition of Personal 
Computer is quite fluid.  Does it have to be called a Personal Computer 
in advertising literature or does any computer that can be used by a 
single person, in any environment, constitute a personal computer.


If i am writing the definition than my original comment that the 
Antikythera Mechanism is the first computing device designed to be used 
by a single person..


To someone else the Altiar is the first personal computer.  And to yet, 
someone else an early PDP or HP computer might be the first personal 
computer.


There are many mechanical and later analog computing devices in use long 
before the modern digital computer.  What about the Hollerith Machine 
used to count the census from the 1890's to the 1950's.  It was a one 
person calculating machine but since it was used for commercial purposes 
does that make it a personal computer.  When IBM initially released the 
first PC it was intended not for home use but for business use (for 
$10,000 1980's dollars).  The Northstar Horizon was also marketed as a 
business computer but used by home S-100 hobbyists.


The point, as I stated earlier, is that for every different definition 
we will find a different result.


I guess this means that the definition of personal computer is personal

This is written with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

On 5/25/2024 1:27 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:

On 5/25/24 13:05, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote:
When announced and sold new, were the SIMON, LINC and G-15 sold and 
described as, in the exact words, "personal computer"?  Did the guy 
with multiple supercomputers in his basement buy them NEW, to use 
them for their designed purpose?  If not they are just memorabilia, 
like a victrola.


The Bendix G-15 came out in 1956!  It cost about $60,000 in 1956 
Dollars.  The first LINC machines were built at an MIT summer school 
by grad students who would then take them back to their home 
institutions and use then in biomedical research labs.  The LINCs in 
this case cost about $50K, and were built starting in 1961-62.  The 
term "personal computer" was not coined until a LONG time after.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: terminology [was: First Personal Computer]

2024-05-25 Thread Mike Katz via cctalk

I'm sorry but I beg to differ with you here. The DEC PDP line of single
user interactive computers (as opposed to batch processing only systems)
started in the late 1950's and early 1960's and spawned many generations
as well as copies and other companies (Data General being the most well
known of these).Yes multi user time sharing operating systems we added
later on but initially they were single user interactive, (DEC 10 & 20
excepted).Does a computer lose its "Personal" identification if it can
handle multiple users as an option. There were multiple user time
sharing Operating Systems for many early personal computers (Unix,
Xenix, MP/M, Uniflex, OS/9, etc.). Even the aforementioned PDP computers
ran multi-user time sharing systems. Does that, then, invalidate them
for consideration as a personal computer? Does that make any Linux
machine not a personal computer, by definition, because it can handle
more than one user or task? As I have said earlier in this thead and its
fore bearers, the term Personal Computer is so non-specific that we can
argue from here to Alpha Centauri and back without coming up with an
agreed upon definition. So, until a concrete definition can be made, the
discussion of the answer is completely moot. I stick by my original
challenge, find a calculating device that predates the Antikythera
Mechanism (36 BCE). Simple measuring devices like the sun dial and
sextant don't count as they don't calculate, they measure.

On 5/25/2024 4:26 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote:

(Rick--IIRC, some later Curta (knockoffs?) could do square roots too, is that
true, do you have one?)

OK, I'll loosen up, or make exceptions.

Maybe some devices before the altair used the exact or inexact words "personal
computer".

but they did not "create a market" or lead directly to a series of similar, competing
products, and do not come anywhere close to what we think of as a "personal computer"
now. The Altair is very different from a modern personal computer, but still has more similarities
and a continuous chain of intermediate stages. Part of what makes a personal computer to us is
that we can easily switch from one to another. That would not have been possible between the
LGP-30, LINC, etc.

I still ask the question, what fraction of the G-15, LINC, IBM 610, Programma 101, etc,
were purchased as "personal" devices by an individual, for personal use, and
from household funds rather than via a corporate (including educational) purchase-order?

Other terminology:

IIRC the first computers that were sold as "supercomputers" were scalar, maybe with a few
more processors than the generation before, but programmed in the same manner. Then shortly came
the massively parallel "supercomputers" created from commodity microcomputer chips, and
the term supercomputer has transitioned to mean them.

--Carey

On 05/25/2024 3:33 PM CDT Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:

While the LGP-30(vacuum tube/drum), G-15(vacuum tube/drum), and PB-250(transistor/delay lines) predated it, the ground-breaking Olivetti Programma 101(transistor/delay line) programmable desktop calculator was officially called a "personal computer" in some of its advertising and sales literature. It was introduced in October of 1965.

Late in the game as far as single-user, standard AC-line-powered computing devices
compared to those machines and probably others, but those machines, AFAIK, were not
advertised nor specified as "personal computers".

That said, I am much more aware of electronic calculator history than computer history, so I could be entirely biased here. Also, the Programma 101, as I've stated here before, only scratches the definition of a true computer in that it is not capable of handling any data type but floating point binary-coded decimal numbers, has very limited data storage capability, and had no peripheral interfacing capability.

There were quite a number of single-user computing devices made and sold that ran on
standard AC power, and were vastly more capable than the Programma 101, and predated it,
but, AFAIK, were not advertised or particularly marketed as "personal
computers".

One that comes to mind is the Monroe Monrobot III(vacuum tube/drum), introduced
in February, 1955.

Another is the IBM 610 "Auto Point"(vacuum tube/drum) computer, introduced in
1957.
It was originally named the "Personal Automatic Computer" (PAC) by its designer.

I'm sure that there are quite a few other machines developed in the mid-to-late
1950's that would qualify as personal computing devices, but these two are the
ones that I'm aware of that seem to fit the bill. Some of these may actually
have been capable of manipulating data types other than decimal numbers.

In 1962, Casio introduced its AL-1 programmable (up to 360 steps) relay-based
electric calculator. It was definitely intended as a personal computing
device, and calculations could be performed manually from a keyboard much

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