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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Who Invented Personal Computing? Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of Microcomputing


A generation of young people who just came for a chance to look for colleges and  grew up with computers and teams are always personal. I  keyboard data is always and always saw his work in the  the screen almost instantly responds to your input. Increasingly  use a small laptop, flat screen TV with high resolution, or even  User Interface  portable device that is tailored to your needs. Personal computers. Z?
Have you thought about it, because who took part in the  software at the beginning, and recently published a book about their experiences at the end of software sales in 1970. Title of the book sent Pump: How TRS-80 enthusiasts helped cause the PC revolution. The book written with David, my husband, talked about how Steve Leininger, newly employed engineers and computer enthusiasts, and Don French, confidential, l  company has developed the innovative product that is less Tandy Corporation $ 150,000 in development costs. Tandy, born in the national network Radio Shack (3500 at the same time) sold the TRS-80 is $ 599.95. He was the most expensive product ever was at Radio Shack, and was very successful, so successful that Radio Shack was crushed by the orders, with  could not be filled. People have a go on the list  wait for one.
Before that were personal computers, the company was a great band. In 1960, computers were big and expensive, and not on  screen. Device  / O teleprinter mechanism is probably very big, clumsy and expensive. Or maybe you are connected to  terminal , l , on the other team  screen and keyboard. Perhaps, with this team is a bit less in use  hui, but no.
Commodore sold Chuck pedals, which started work on the computer. According to Wozniak  in the book, is sold is the prototype of the Apple II in the garage Steve Jobs, and taking into account  purchase rights, but Commodore decided to create your own project. Commodore PET, was launched in 1977, was the keyboard and the tape, a complete system.
In 1976, another Steve - Steve Leininger - worked for National Semiconductor and has worked in the shop Byte Paul Terrell, where Wozniak, Apple  models are been sold. Terrell Jobs and Wozniak started a real business, the proposal is $ 50,000 hand-built  devices that n  there was no keyboard or monitor, but it  really, that  a fan deck, with  a real computer accessories. Leininger found a few days talking to buyers Tandy Corporation, parent company of Radio Shack. Later he received an offer  employment and Fort Worth, Texas, to meet with John Roach, president, and  man who is a partner of the French project TRS-80, Don.

The tremendous strides we've made in how we use our computers is exemplified for me in two remarks from family members. The first was something my daughter, born in 1985, said to me some years back. She said that when she first heard that computers were once huge machines that filled a room, she pictured in her mind a giant modern computer, with a gigantic screen filling a whole wall and a huge keyboard, with a person jumping from one enormous key to another. She couldn't see how else a computer could fill a room. The other remark was just recently made by my sister, who is relatively new to computer ownership. She had finished reading my book, which she said she enjoyed despite her lack of computer savvy, and I was pleased because we did not intend our book just for geeks. Then she said, "I always thought early computers would be kind of like modern ones only maybe slower, but now I see that they were completely different." My first reaction to this was wanting to say "No they weren't," but I didn't say that because I wanted to think about why she would make this remark. I realized that the way a user interacts with a PC today really is completely different from looking at a screen displaying a blinking cursor and the word "Ready." That's what we used to see on our TRS-80 when we turned it on. It was ready for us to give it a command and until we did, it would do nothing. And it could only do one thing at a time. Just look at the graphics, sound and interactivity of modern personal computers and, even though they are the descendants of the blank screen with a blinking cursor, the way we use computers and take their amazing abilities for granted is completely different from the era of microcomputers that dazzled us thirty years ago.

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