1. Gordon’s Personal View of Personal Computing: before the PC
Vintage Computer Society
27 September 1998
Gordon Bell

3. Apple II

4. First personal computer

5. Micral

6. In the beginning: Manchester “Baby” ran the first program 22 June 1948

7. English Electric Deuce Console 1955

8. Whirlwind c1953 … 1st generation, 16-bit word; 4 KB memory; 8 K drum
Whirlwind begot TX-O/TX-2 begot DEC PDP-1 Real time, first compiler, ECAD, text editor

9. Whirlwind console, drum, 1 Kw core

10. SAGE Control Room c 1962. Whirlwind used for first experiments.

11. SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) Operator Console

12. TX-0 Console c1959… one of the first transistorized personal computers
Speech, handwriting recognition, neuro data analysis, etc. Interactive editors, debuggers, etc.

13. MIT Speech group with TX-0, c1959.

14. DEC Computer before PDP-11

15. DEC PDP-1 c1961

16. Wes Clark & LINC c1962: Personal computers for bio-medical research

17. PDP-5 c1964: PDP-8 predecessor
Process control, real time experiments. Fortran ran in 4 K, 12 bit words

18. Gbell with LINC and PDP-8 c1965

19. PDP-8: first mini
First OEM computer. OS/8 (from timesharing) begot RT-11 begot CPM

20. PDP-8 Modules

21. PDP-8/E

22. PDP-8 and Linc Family Tree

23. PDP-8 12 bit word price (t)

24. PDP-8 prices (t)

25. Timesharing: given everyone their own, low cost, personal computer

26. PDP-6 c1965 : First commercial time shared computer. Gbell & Alan Kotok

27. PDP-6 Development team c1965

28. PDP-6/10/ DECsystem 10/20 family tree

29. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
Ken Olsen President, Chairman and founder of Digital, 1977

30. Equating yourself to the average “user/buyer” is risky
Equating yourself to the average “user/buyer” is risky unless you’re an average user.

31. Why didn’t Digital lead personal computers?
That’s another talk…

32. Minis and timesharing contributions
SpaceWar demonstrated the importance of interactive graphics
Editors, calculators, interactive debuggers, interpreters were in use
Mail and chat used timesharing
Minis established embedded computers