Talk:History of personal computers

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This page contents originate from History section of Personal computer.--Kozuch (talk) 20:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I think it should go right back. This article doesn't even have a proper introduction, and now the personal computer article is unbalanced and missing relevant content that should at least be summarized there. There is a lot more to editing articles than cut'n'paste. And why isn't this called "history of personal computerS"? There is more than one, you know. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The History section was way too long for an artice thats main topic is not history. It is logical, that after such a move it will be necessary to write new History section (which I actually said in Talk:Personal_computer). I named the page in singular, because the original article is in singular too. I am placing Intro-rewrite template here to satisfy your lead request.--Kozuch (talk) 10:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see this article created, I spent 2 solid days formatting and putting together much of this and hated seeing it wasted when it all seemed notable to many people. Alatari (talk) 13:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Price war and crash[edit]

"The result was massive sales of the 64, albeit at almost no profit."... - entire paragraph is NOT TRUE! There is no reference for claims in that paragraph. Not single one! Here is reference about stock price from 1983.: "Which is what he did in those early years for computers, leading Commodore to $700 million in sales in fiscal 1983 and $88 million in profits. At its peak price in those days, the stock that Tramiel had sold in 1962 at a price of $2.50 a share was up to $1,200, and his 6.5% slice of the company was worth $120 million." http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/jack_tramiel_starting_over.htm If 6.5% worth $120 millions than market CAP of Commodore in 1983. was $1,846 millions! ...yes, he drove commodore out of business. So please, fix this paragraph! --Calimero (talk) 13:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations would be great, but dot-com bubbles are famous for inflated stock values with no revenue. How much money did Commodore *make*, not how much were the gamblers bidding for stock? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You can easy find Commodore earning during 80s by typing e.g. "commodore 1983 profit quarter" in Google. Here is link with "compiled" information: http://www.answers.com/topic/commodore-international
1982: "reported profits of $40.6 million on sales of $304 million."
1983: "showed a year-end profit of $74.5 million" link ... than Jack Tramiel left Commodore (January 1984.)
1984: "fiscal year Commodore made $143 million and reported sales of $1.27 billion"
1985: Commodore starts lose money: "The company lost $113 million in 1985"
1986: "... and $127 million in 1986."
On other side, Atari loses as much as $532 million in fiscal 1983. link (while Commodore make $74.5 million profit! To be price: same year many other Computer companies made loses such as Mattel, Texas Instruments... link) but this should not be a surprise: Commodore 64 is single computer that have greater total marketshare even than IBM PC in 1984.! link


Jack Tramiel bought Atari in 1984. and as soon as end of 1985. report first profit: "Atari Corp. rebounded, producing a $25 million profit" link (same year Commodore lose $113 millions!)


now, when we have all this facts, do you still think that "The result was massive sales of the 64, albeit at almost no profit." is a fact??? it is a NONSENSE! this sentence is also untrue: "In the end even Commodore's own finances were crippled by the demands of financing the massive building expansion needed to deliver the machines, and Tramiel was forced from the company." how Commodore "finances were crippled"? by making profits with C64 sale? Commodore start to lose money as soon as demand for C64 start to fall down. Calimero (talk) 10:24, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And another thing[edit]

  • Even worse, much much worse, is no mention of the IMSAI (!!!), mention only indirectly and in passing of the Altair (!!!), and no mention of the Mark-8. Nor are any other S-100 systems nor CP/M systems mentioned. These are some of the most important in the history; any such article should start with these and then expand into others.
  • Example of need for reorganization: PC as Time Magazine Person of the Year is mentioned at least 3 times. Dougmerritt (talk) 16:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Be Bold! - you know what to do. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First hack at fixing these problems. Deleted the duplicated breathless stuff about Time Magazine. Little bit of microcomputer phase 1974 through 1977 period. A well-equipped 1975 microcomputer had a teletype for input/output and mass storage, and might have had as much as 64 K of RAM. BYTE magazine appears. Altair begat the S100 bus. 8-inch mainframe floppy drives were harnessed to micros, which begat various disk operating systems and eventually CP/M. S100 boxes became commonplace for industrial and business applications until RAM became dense enough to make single-board computers practical. Years of struggle with the limitations of 8-bit 64 K address spaces which were never really intended for general purpose computing. Various multi-tasking business systems with multiple terminals and minimal proprietary networking. Computing power and mass storage were low, and expensive, but an S100 system with a local guru to run it was still cheaper than approaching IBM to automate your dental office or law practice. Computer stores popped up. But 1023 different 5 1/4 inch floppy disk formats made stocking software painful. All this needs to be researched and put in the article. We need references. And pictures. The pre-1984 history of personal computers is much more interesting than the post 1984 period, in my opinion. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
talk about evolution from crazed early adopters, kit builders, factory made PET/TRS80, the home computer boom, pc comes along, mac comes along, office machines get cheaper, finally home machines use the same os and hardware as at the office, and of course the throwing open of the Net. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OH, and we've come full circle. First you had to approach the mainframe priests to use the Big Iron and every CPU cycle had to have an accounting code. Then for a while you could buy a desktop and snub the data center guys. Now the desktop is networked and again so hard to use that you need another priesthood to keep Windows alive and again every page you print needs an accounting code (at least at the office). Running a network depersonalizes your personal computer. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

possible references[edit]

See A Chronology of Personal computers. Not much analysis of the significance of events, but lots of key dates and references. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While researching the early PC's history I evolved a pretty large citation BM list. Will try and get that in this talk page someway. My time on Wikipedia is very limited and I'll cite when I can. Alatari (talk) 13:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge from 'Home computer'[edit]

Proposed merge of the content from an article called Home computer. Most of the content there overlaps or is redundant.

Oppose - it's useful to strip out the fad for the low-power 8-bit machines of the '80s from the general trend of personal computer usage. There was a lot more distance between the Commodore 64 at home and the XT at the office than is realized by modern users. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - home computers were a totally different class than personal computers in the 80s and have separate article
Oppose - Personal Computer article is getting too long and an extensive history of personal computer milestones is beyond it's scope. Alatari (talk) 13:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - agree with Wtshymanski and Alatari, and I think that these subjects are in fact so vast that, once they get a really thorough treatment, we're likely to end up actually doing more splitting. The notion of merging these two makes as much (i.e. little) sense to me as merging both of these into the Computer article. Dougmerritt (talk) 03:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Measure of notability for inclusion[edit]

When I originally put this together I used the benchmark that a machine had to sell over 1,000,000 units or introduced some significant new development to the market as the game cartridge, floppy drive, CD-ROM. Also breaking new marketing territory or driving new important user applications could be considered if they fail the 1m in sales mark. Alatari (talk) 13:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quality standards rewrite tag[edit]

The article still needs work but the main complaints in the rewrite tag appeare to be corrected and the article seems in much better shape. I'm replacing the text with the next biggest problem of regular citation failures throughout. Alatari (talk) 13:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Historical context[edit]

You've got to talk about the Elder Days. We don't want people thinking Bill Gates invented the PC in 1981 to improve sales of Windows. My literary skills are not up to describing the raw thrill I had walking up to a PDP 11/45 in 1979 and having it at my complete disposal - a personal computer, indeed, but no "microcomputer" or "home computer". Imagine the feelings of the first buyers behind the wheel of a Model T - no more waiting for the train! You've got to retain some of that feeling of the impact personal computers had - only a very few people had the experience in the early days, but now it's so commonplace that no-one respects how magical it is. If the term "microcomputer" means anything at all, then this mumblety-mumble gigahertz/gigabyte box sitting on my desk is every bit as much as microcomputer as an Altair. A "history of personal computers" articles that ignores the LINC and night-shift debugging is like a history of England that doesn't talk about anything before teh Beatles broke up. A dull recitation of catalog numbers is not history. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your passionate sentiment. Alatari (talk) 13:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Me too, strongly agree. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, came home with so *many* notes that I'm overwhelmed by the mere thought of starting to add them to wikipedia, other than a little here and little there, piecemeal. Dougmerritt (talk) 04:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Computer Museum called the LINC the "first personal computer." Dpbsmith (talk) 22:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


"it is important to include only those machines that had some sort of influence on the history and evolution of the PC." That's wildly inappropriate. The title is "History of personal computers." To restrict it to "the PC," which I assume means IBM's model 5150 and its architectural descendants, is like saying an article on music should only include events that influenced the history and development of rock. As far as I know, the first significant use of the phrase "personal computer" was in Xerox's description of the Alto. Well, I see the article mentions two earlier uses. It should mention the Alto, too, though! Dpbsmith (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a thoughtful article on personal computing Before the Altair. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing Heathkit section[edit]

I have twice removed the Heath section, arguing that it's influence on the history of computing is simply unimportant, and not worthy of inclusion here. The goal of any article on the Wiki is to balance the need for detail with the need to keep things short, so we don't overwhelm the reader. In this case, it is important to include only those machines that had some sort of influence on the history and evolution of the PC, which I argue the Heath did not. The section has been re-inserted both times now, so I guess it's time to bring the discussion here.

Wtshymanski, if you wish to argue that the Heath was historically significant, and deserves a three paragraph inclusion, you will need to demonstrate:

1) documentary evidence of widespread use in common magazines of the era, like Compute!, Creative Computing, Byte, Dr. Dobbs, etc. Not advertising, not reviews, articles about using the machine. Thousands of such articles exist for the Apple II, PET, Atari's, C64 and so on, which clearly demonstrates their importance at the time. In fact, all of these companies had multiple' magazines devoted to just these machines. Is there a wide body of general articles on the Heath? I don't recall any. I don't recall there ever being a magazine devoted to it either.

August 1977 Byte (magazine) "Whats New" Pgs 1 and 2; PAM8 a new Approach - Byte Oct78; Building the Heath H8 (Dr P.L. Poduska) - Byte Mar79 http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/heath/index.htm http://davidwallace2000.home.comcast.net/~davidwallace2000/h8/HUG.htm http://ww_heco.home.mindspring.com/ Cuvtixo (talk) 22:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2) documentary evidence of the claim that the "The H-8 was successful". This article is about machines that sold millions of units, not thousands, and any "successful" claim will need to demonstrate those sorts of numbers.

3) a demonstration that any of features the Heath systems contributed to the history of computing. Was it the first widespread kit-built machine, like the Altair? Were they the least expensive, like the Sinclair? Most widely sold, like the C64? Best performing, like the Atari? Or perhaps they were the first all-in-one machines like the Sol-20 and PET? Or the first with built-in color support, like the Apple II? Does the Heath have any notable "first" or "best" at all? Anything that is even remotely historically notable?

I remember the H8 from when I was a kid, because I had a Heath catalog. I recall them being expensive, limited in terms of capability (no color, sound, etc.), being completely non-standard, and as a result, having a limited software library. At the time, I knew people with a wide variety of machines; various S-100 machines, Apples, PETs, Ataris, I even knew someone that had a CompuColor. I never met a single person that owned a Heath. Ever, even now 25 years later. The fact that they don't even have an article on the wiki is a good reason to believe their influence is extremely limited.

If you think they have any reason to be in an article on the history of personal computing, you're going to need something more than a personal opinion.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of astonishing truculence is the sort of thing that drives off editors.
In 1978 there *were* no million-selling machines! The Heath is notable because it was an instance of a (moderately well-known) electronics company trying to branch out into the developing field of personal computers. The stance that nothing before August 1981 matters does not well serve the article's claim to be a history of personal computers. It's precisely this era that *needs* to be documented on Wikipedia else people are going to come to think that Bill Gates invented the PC to improve the sales of Windows. In 1978 there *were* no standards - how can you criticize any machine for being "non-standard" in that era?
One difference I think from the S100 kits was that you could get everything (processor, terminal, disk drives, printer, software) from your friendly local Heath outlet and assemble it. Even Winnipeg had a Heathkit store back in the day. I would imagine most cities did not have a comparable presence for any other kit vendor. This is notable and different.
Also check out Heathkit H89 and heath H8 - at least someone thought these machines were notable enough to create redirects for them. Lack or presence of a Wikipedia article is not a reliable indicator of notability or importance. There's a powerful selection effect operating on Wikipedia which I think often seems to be written by bright teenagers with time on their hands, at least when it comes to technology related articles.
I didn't write the original text but I certainly think it needs to be retained in the article. Without pioneering companies there would not have been million-selling computers.
Please don't truncate the article - it's important for people to understand just how diverse things were in the 1977-1980 era - when there was no obvious one way to do a personal computer. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with user Wtshymanski!!! Maury repeatedly uses phrase "history of computers" I want to remind him and others that this is history of personal computers, in the generic sense. Maury also demands documentary citations, and yet immediately thereafter shares his undocumented experiences as if they were relevant! Maury, for one thing, Heathkit was marketed to adults (unlike other more educational items in the catalog). Apple II, although available earlier, wasn't very popular until after VisiCalc became popular. There was also a large divide between West Coast and East Coast hobbyist computing at that time. For instance, professionals working around Route 128 and Boston used to call SCSI-"sexy," not "scuzzy." Geography might explain your ignorance of Heathkits. And as for "Was it the first widespread kit-built machine, like the Altair?" It was the FIRST AND ONLY kit-built machine for years. S-100 home computers weren't available as a "kit," yhat makes Heathkits notable. It is ridiculous to ask for magazines and articles. This is like asking for articles and widespread use of the Model-T in 1908. On the other hand, there are books and magazines about the HISTORY of personal computers which cover the Heathkit(and even the wider field of history of computers) I will certainly return with citations. Cuvtixo (talk) 21:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The significance of the Heath H8 and H11, besides being very early entrants (1977) is that Heath was considered to be a "real" company of stature, not a tiny startup whose first product was a computer. Heath was known as the first company to market affordable analog computers, so its involvement with personal computers signaled that they had arrived. Perhaps people do not understand the reputation that Heathkits had among hobbyists. Yes, this is only my personal testimony, but I never used these machines and have no personal agenda in touting them. Nevertheless, I and everyone else was well aware of their influence at the time. Building a microcomputer was considered to be a risky business and not for the faint-of-heart. But Heathkit? Well, if they Heathkit was offering them, you knew they would work, that there was really was such a thing as a $500 computer. It had the same sort of effect on the hobbyist community that IBM's introduction of the PC would later have on the general public.

I wouldn't be surprised if the H11 was the first 16-bit microcomputer.

Advertisements for the Heath H8 and H11 appeared in Interface Age, a major trade publication.

The Heath H8 had a users' group.

"I don't recall there ever being a magazine devoted to it either." Of course not. In 1977, computer magazines... BYTE, Personal Computing, Dr. Dobbs' Journal... covered the whole world of computers. The single-brand magazine didn't emerge until several years later.

In 1979, BYTE devoted an article to "Building the Heath H8 computer," written by Dr. Paul R. Poduska.

According to Make magazine, the H8 was "a huge Heathkit success."

Dpbsmith (talk) 22:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found another good link about Heathkit computers http://www.decodesystems.com/heathkit-pcc-jul77.html H11 "incorporated" Equipment Corporation's (DEC) LSI-11, a 16-bit computer. Which became the PDP-11. Cuvtixo (talk) 23:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Well, I don't think that's quite right... the PDP-11 itself obviously preceded its LSI implementation!) Dpbsmith (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]
Check the Wikipedia article! ;) OK I phrased it badly! "The LSI-11 (PDP-11/03) was the first PDP-11 model produced using large-scale integration; the entire CPU was contained on 4 LSI chips made by Western Digital (the MCP-1600 chip set). "
(Yes, but you implied that the LSI-11 became the PDP-11. The PDP-11 existed long before there was large-scale integration. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Every one of these responses fails to address even one of the issues I mentioned. I was accused of "astonishing truculence" and it was claimed that I was confusing "computers" with "personal computers", and even the claim that I was stating that my personal memory was supposed to be some sort of evidence. In other words, lots of personal attack. Sadly, there was almost zero effort to address the actual issues. Let me address those attempts:

1) Cuvtixo article is exactly what I said was not the sort of thing that demonstrates importance. There were literally hundreds of computers released between 1976 and 1980 that would have articles of this sort. In order to demonstrate historical importance, one needs to demonstrated continued widespread coverage. The existence of entire commercial magazines (as opposed to newsletters) demonstrates this. Continued coverage in major generalist magazines, like the Atari columns in Creative Computing for instance, are also a good example. Can someone demonstrate that?

2) Advertisements absolutely do not count. Again, one can trivially find advertisements for hundreds of different machines that left absolutely no mark on the history of personal computers.

3) With the exception of the 16-bit claim, which is wrong (demonstrated here, no less), there hasn't been a single attempt to demonstrate any reason to believe this machine is in any way interesting to the history of personal computers.

I'm sorry... what was the earlier 16-bit microcomputer? If you're talking about the LSI-11, mentioned above, it was a board-level system, not a microcomputer, and it was an OEM product built into custom devices, whereas the H11 was a standalone computer. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is someone going to try to address the issues here? Or just keep attacking the messenger?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I did address a couple of your issues.
First, I stated that the reason the Heath H8 is important in the history of personal computing is that the entry of Heath Corporation into this market was perceived as legitimizing the microcomputer. It will take some digging to establish this with references, but I've no doubt at all that it can be done.
Second, you asked for "documentary evidence of the claim that the 'The H-8 was successful,'" so I provided a specific link to a specific recent article in Make magazine calling the H8, direct quote, "a huge Heathkit success."
Are they even real issues? I'm late to this discussion so please give me a link to the discussions on this talk page where consensus was reached on the following matters:
  • advertisements being irrelevant
  • a threshold of millions of sales being required for mention
  • the scope of the article being limited to machines that influenced the IBM PC (as opposed to "personal computers" in general).
Dpbsmith (talk) 14:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I'll start at the end, because that most closely matches the crux of the issue I'm trying to get across. The argument I am making has nothing specifically to do with the Heath machines per se. It has to do with which machines should be in this article and which should not.
My concern is that unless we have some sort of objective filter this article will stop being about the history of personal computers and turn into a list of every personal computer in history. Those are two very different articles. Perhaps the Wiki should have an article listing every personal computer, perhaps not.
If this article is going to be about history, as the name implies, then we have to pick which machines will make it into that list based on their historical importance. What does it mean to be historically important? Well generally it means that they were considered important at the time, or at a later time when historians have had a chance to reflect on the era, or better yet, both.
Consider the Apple II. The Apple II is the topic of numerous historical works, perhaps hundreds of books and thousands of articles. It is mentioned in every major computing history article that covers the era or the development of personal computers. It is the topic of hundreds of thousands of web pages. Finding such evidence is trivially easy. Google turns up almost 1.5 MILLION hits on the Apple II. Google Books, which now includes many computer magazines of the era, turns up several thousand. Even in terms of fan base, there are thousands of web pages devoted to the machine. Clearly this machine is and was important. So by any measure, the Apple II is a must-have in any article that purports to record the history of personal computers.
Now let us examine the Heath H8. Google turns up a total of 926 hits. Of these, about a dozen are about the computer, and most of those are inside lists of old computers, or within lists of Heathkit products. There are a large number of hits about totally unrelated topics, like the biology of the heath, or the Heath government in the UK. Google Books turns up another 146 hits, of slightly higher quality. Examining these you will find that the vast majority are in product news sections, Heath's advertisements, or mentioned in passing. There are less than half a dozen hits that are articles about the machine itself, and they're all from when it was being introduced. There is not one single mention of these machines in historical articles like this page.
If this machine is historically important, as is being argued here, one will have to explain why it is that it has failed to make any mark in the historical record. I argue this is extremely good evidence that it's because it is not historically important. In spite of many arguments, you Dpbsmith, are the only one to even attempt to offer objective evidence. So what is that? A single mention in the caption of an image that states that the product was important to Heath. Under no circumstances would I consider that to be a statement of the machine's historical importance in general.
Now let's get to the specifics:
Advertisements are irrelevant for establishing historical importance. Anyone can put an advertisement in a magazine. The fact that Heath widely advertised the machine does not, by itself, establish its historical importance. All it establishes is that Heath had an advertising budget.
I made no suggestion of some sort of threshold in sales as a filter to the list. Quite the opposite: some machines are historically important in spite of small numbers, like the Kenback or Alto. I fully support their inclusion, because one can trivially demonstrate their importance, like at the Computer History Museum. That said, huge sales numbers like the C64 guarantee it a place on the list. Certainly there's nothing historically notable about the Heath's sales, or at least no one's come up with any such argument. So as an argument of its own, it fails.
Historical importance can come about by being the "first" of something notable. In spite of asking, no one has managed to come up with a single "first" for any of these machines, with the possible exception of first 16-bit PC for the H11, except that other machines also used the LSI-11 (including DEC's own, starting in 1975/6), and one might be inclined to consider the DG Nova, many of which were used as PC's in spite of no one calling them that.
Back to the point; historically important events are well recorded in the historical record. The Apple II is widely recorded in the historical record. The Heath machines are not. That implies that the Heath machines are not historically important. That implies it should be removed from the article, or as I said in the edit notes, removed to a footnote.
So again, if someone can offer any sort of substantiated argument that suggests the Heath was historically important enough to deserve a longer entry than the Apple II, I'm all ears. No one has come even close yet. All I get is people picking at my statements using too-literal interpretations of my words.
Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the Kenbak must go - no sales, no magazine, no standards, no software, no reviews, we never met anyone who owned one, no influence on the IBM PC. It did have an ad in the "Scientific American" that ran for one month but we're told ads don't count. It's not even a microprocessor! --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And one couldn't ask for a better example of my last point than this. Wtshymanski, the Kenback is historically important because it is widely commented on by historians. You have to meet at least one of the criterion for "importance", and the Kenback does that. So which one does the Heath H8 meet? Any of them?
Looking at the "Chronology" I listed above, in late 1977, we have Radio Shack opening its first all-computer store (they'd just sold 10,000 computers!), we have the first Apple II shipped to customers and Apple considering introducing a disk drive to their product line, we have Microsoft winning a lawsuit against PERTEC on the ownership of their BASIC, we have total shipments of "personal computers" of 48,000 - and we have Heath introducing the H8! With total sales of 48,000, obviously none of these machines were important (and they were all non-standard - none of them could run Vista or even Linux). No mention of the hundreds of other personal computers introduced in 1977, though. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maury Markowitz: "My concern is that unless we have some sort of objective filter this article will stop being about the 'history of personal computers' and turn into 'a list of every personal computer in history.'" Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. If it becomes too listy, cut the descriptions down to single sentences and wedge 'em into a section entitled "list of historical personal computers" or something. I'm skeptical about the usefulness of "objective filters" in writing good articles about history. The filter should be the same filter we use throughout Wikipedia: if someone says a computer was important, and someone else challenges it, the person who says it was important has to come up with a rationale for why it's important, and some reasonable source citation that support the rationale. That's enough of a filter. WP:RS is a good enough metafilter on the references themselves. By all means, keep 'em honest by insisting on a citation, but then let go, even if you don't personally agree with other editors' judgements.

At root, Wikipedia depends on consensus, good faith, and mutual respect between editors. Rules are useful in helping consensus gel, but there's no algorithm for what's "important" and what isn't, and editors must sometimes agree to disagree... and should err on the side of inclusion. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:07, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A random item: one of Microsoft's first eleven employees, Gordon Letwin, was a Heath alumnus, and the (apparently sole) author of HDOS. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And? Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A random item: a 1993 USENET posting comments that "At the time, the Heath H11 was about the most powerful 'PC' you could buy." Random Googling turns up some evidence that it was popular among researchers, presumably researchers who couldn't afford real PDP-11's, for interfacing to lab equipment. One article, for example, published in Instrumentation Science & Technology, Volume 13, Issue 2 1984 , pages 117 - 134--that is, a substantial article in a real journal (not a hobbyist publication)--says

Dpbsmith (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usenet musings are SPS, and fail RS.
That's why they're on this page, not in the article. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The second is a hit for notability for the existence of an H11 article, but this is not an H11 article. Keep trying. Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

""Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. "

It did. I removed the Heath section in the midst of a major edit that also removed a number of other machines of equally questionable historical importance, specifically because it was becoming a dumping ground for every machine out there. In this one case, editors reverted to the border of 3RR, so I took it to this page.
"no algorithm for what's "important" and what isn't"
The wikipedia has to decide what is and is not important all the time. The community has developed a wide variety of mechanisms for this, one of them being the Wikipedia:Search engine test. I believe the demonstration above suggests that the Heath fails the test. There's certainly enough material for an article on it's own, but nothing that establishes its importance in any way that argues for inclusion here. Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proceedings of the Eleventh International Congress on Agricultural Engineering, Dublin, 4-8 September, 1989. An article on measuring tractor field performance, reviewing previous work, mentions a 1980 system that "used a Heath H8-8080A microcomputer. An analog Real-Time Interval (RTI-1200-016) interface board was used [to acquire signals measuring] drawbar loading, axle loading, and axle torque." Dpbsmith (talk) 23:29, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is the best anyone can come up with? After two and half days? Tractor performance?
Does anyone have anything cogent to add? You know, something from a real historical work that passes RS that examines the personal computer market and establishes Heath's place in its history? Like the "apple+ii"+computer+history&btnG=Search+Books hundreds of books that do the same for Apple?
It's time to fish or cut bait. Unreferenced, challenged material is supposed to be removed on sight.
Maury Markowitz (talk) 00:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The legitimization of the microcomputer[edit]

To see the evolution of the microcomputer in technical terms or sales figures is to miss most of the reasons why things happened as they did. What I'm about to say is in the nature of legitimate opinion that should be fairly noncontroversial to those who lived through the period. Obviously none of this can go in the article as it stands, but I'd submit that this can be a sort of rough outline of a part of the historical context, that could guide addition of properly referenced future content.

Personal computing is the confluence of several trends. One was the invention of personal computing itself, specifically the development of Whirlwind-style, short-word-length, integer-only computing, with direct console interaction... as opposed to Princeton-style computing. This largely took place before the development of the personal computer. PDP-1 hackers in the 1960s were already using computers for many mainstream PC purposes: word processing (Flexowriters were fully letter-quality printers, and TJ-1 justified the lines), impromptu numeric calculation (Expensive Desk Calculator), and games (Spacewar! and a flight simulator).

Another was a hobbyist community that knew about and wanted to engage in personal computing. People who knew why you would want a home computer. (Not for recipe planning!) If it hadn't been for the hobby community, microprocessors would have remained dedicated devices embedded in other systems. The idea of using a microprocessor as a general-purpose computer was not only alien to, it was actively resisted by the computing establishment. IBM and others knew quite consciously that microprocessors posed a threat to their established business and did their best to create artificial walls between microprocessors and computers.

An enormously important part of personal computer history was the legitimization process. This occurred rather quickly, over a period of perhaps five to ten years. Personal computers have now been legitimate for decades, but IBM would never have produced a PC if they hadn't been inexorably drawn into the riptide of legitimization.

The first hobbyist machines, including the Altair, were poorly engineered, if indeed they were engineered at all. Many did not work if peripherals were added to the bus. Many did not work even before they were added! The "kits" were not complete. The finished computers were science fair projects. Everyone knew some enthusiast who had a computer that worked fine except on whatever particular day you came to look at it.

Legitimization proceeded in stages. Heath was important precisely because of the enormous influence of the company and its catalogs. It did not legitimize the microcomputer to the public at large, but it legitimized it to the world of electronic hobbyists in general. It spread the idea beyond the wild-eyed Computer Faire types. Whether or not you actually bought one, if it was in the Heath catalog you knew that it was going to work, and had "adult supervision" and support behind it. The Heath was a breakthrough machine in the Altair, Cromemco, KIM-1 era.

The next stage was the fully-assembled, working unit. There were of course many but Apple was a standout here because of the general standard of fit and finish. (Of course, the first time I saw one, I was initially impressed by the brilliant thermal engineering that allowed it to operate reliably with no fan... only to discover quickly that what we had here was a total lack of thermal engineering, almost as it had never occurred to Apple that there was such a thing). This was the Apple, Commodore Pet, TRS-80 era. You could buy one and it would work, but what exactly could you do with one besides program it yourself, or type in programs from David Ahl's book and play "Hunt the Wumpus?" Of course the ads implied these were business machines, but they weren't.

The next stage was the emergence of Visicalc and the smuggling of these machines into businesses, a process that many will remember clearly. Purchase orders for Apples that not only avoided calling them computers but might have misleadingly called them "desktop calculators." Price negotiations and trying to convince dealers to cut a price to $4995 instead of $5025 because then it wouldn't need to go through the capital equipment committee.

The next stage was the mini and mainframe companies being dragged kicking and screaming into the picture. As I recall, several big companies... Xerox was one of them... introduced pedestrian computers all at about the same time, very uninteresting machines whose only significance was the big names on them. That is, the big companies, including IBM, realized that the pain of introducing microcomputers, while large, was going to be worse than the pain of missing the boat altogether. Then came 1981, and that strange machine with the deliberately underpowered processor, and schizophrenia about whether it should have a professional 80-column monochrome character generator or an Apple-like toy color graphics card... and the rest is familiar history. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In spite of longish personal essays like this, and lots of similar statements above, none of the editors has managed to provide a single reference that does anything like back up the claims like "The Heathkits played a role in legitimizing the personal computer", or "signaled to the electronics and radio amateur community that the personal computer had arrived". Several other references have been added, but all they do is confirm the existence of the machines, or even less relevant, Heath.
I have taken it on myself to do what no one else was seemingly willing to do, and produced this article. Challenged material will be removed. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about CP/M systems?[edit]

CP/M systems were a significant phase of personal computer development, but they are entirely missing from the article. Here are some examples. If there are no objections, I will try to help fill in this obvious gap... --Blainster (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck finding references; contemplate the discussion of Heathkit above and tread warily. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar[edit]

I'm working on the grammar problem now. --Sci-Fi Dude (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stan Veit's web site[edit]

He was an editor of Computer Shopper for 4 years during the '80's and the site http://www.pc-history.org/index.html is based off his knowledge about the period. He claims all the TRS-80 models outsold the other machines until IBM and C-64. No numbers though. He did explain the FCC interference issues with Apple and TRS-80 plastic cases. I hope that this puts the issue over TRS-80 interference to bed? Alatari (talk) 12:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Olivetti Programma 101 doesn't deserve any mention ??[edit]

The design of the Programma 101 began in 1962, making it one of the earliest designs for an integrated desktop stored program calculator, a primitive but very succesful sort of PC Magnagr (talk) 22:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As always, WP:Be Bold and put it in, if you can find some linkage between this 1965 programmable calculator and what later became a personal computer. The average industrial wage in 1965 in the US was around $2.66 per hour in manufacturing. I speculate not too many individuals would have bought a $3,200 Programma 101, though it looks like 40,000 were sold. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, while the Kenbak costed "just" $750, the Datapoint 2200 costed over $5000, so I guess that the 101 can be considered a personal computer w.r.t. its price. CAFxX (talk) 10:36, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and added it. CAFxX (talk) 10:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Obvious Conflict[edit]

The very first sentence in the article says "The history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1972 with the introduction of the HP 9820 PC[1]microcomputers, although some mainframe and minicomputers had been applied as single-user systems much earlier."

The very first sentence in the Overview section says "The history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1977 with the introduction of microcomputers, although some mainframe and minicomputers had been applied as single-user systems much earlier." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.218.24.11 (talk) 12:01, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A small response to the banner[edit]

I've deleted the reference to the HP's calculator (see eg: http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp9820.htm) as "the first PC" together with its unverifiable reference. Sorry, but there is now no inline tag available for unverifiability (the trade catalogue out of print for 40 years).

As far as I know the term Personal Computer was coined by IBM to market their IBM Personal Computer (or IBM PC for short) 1981. If you couldn't afford the real deal of an IBM PC then many manufacturers e.g Sanyo offered what were marketed as "PC clones". It was this computer that marked the watershed between calculators and "PCs" (as this group of devices, that were "personal" and were "computers" though of a "hobbyist" kind then became known) and the IBM PC and clones that swept these all almost entirely away within a few brief years. During the "war that wasn't" (it was won if not before then as soon as IBM fired their first shot) there were "many" technically inclined folk who championed the BBC MIcro, or the Sinclair QL (I confess to having been one who rushed out and bought one - d'Oh!) but whatever the technical arguments the war was over. Resistance was futile. Even the Mac struggled to get a decent share of the market (1984)! Currently Windows OS (the symbion that devoured IBM's PC) has about 90% of the market and Apple less than 10% http://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0. Of course in the mobile space things are very different.

The Wiki articles on the "PC" seem revisionist, i.e they attempt to write history in a form that accords with the writer's ideological viewpoint rather than to stand as a record of facts and context. Is this tide in wiki editing now irreversible?

Anyway, the evolution of computing UP TO the point of the IBM PC is one thing, interesting and relevant, BUT the deal that IBM made with Billy the Kid is what counts and the rest, as they say, is history - i.s THE HISTORY of the PC.

LookingGlass (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I had to rewrite the intro, so researched the subject and provided the internal and external refs that substantaite it (excepting detailed market size penetration and share analysis pre- and post- 1981) and which I was referring above. In the end a way bigger response than I intended but hopefully worth it. LookingGlass (talk) 07:45, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Lack of a clear definition for personal computer leads to confusion[edit]

I find some problems with the article:

  • The definition "A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use" is imprecise - any research-intended computer would fit in it as long as it was operated by a single person.
  • Furthering into the imprecision, the section "The beginnings of the personal computer industry" mixes personal computers with minicomputers that happen to have features similar to those of personal computers. There we find the IBM 610 (800 pounds/360 kg).
  • It is particularly irritant to find minicomputers misrepresented as personal computers just because of having terminals that resemble personal computers... "most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200". It makes you think that the people who wrote this had never seen a minicomputer.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ignacio.Agulló (talk • contribs) 00:00, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ignacio.Agulló (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what it makes me think. There is just no clear definition. The serious personal computer I used was the Xerox Alto, which emulated a Data General Nova minicomputer, but was configured for use by a single user, and each user's office had one; some other minis were used similarly. Before that, I played with "home" computers which were not very recognizably like what we call personal computers; they weren't really configured for being used, but rather for playing with. And I used a variety of programmable calculators that sometimes get counted as personal computers. It's hard to see what precise definition we'd want around all this mess. Dicklyon (talk) 21:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Personal computer invention[edit]

The firt persona computer was invented by Olivetty La Programa 101, please make the corrections... 201.162.236.204 (talk) 18:07, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's there already at History of personal computers#Olivetti Programma 101; says 1965, so it's between the earlier ones and the later ones. Whether or not it's actually a personal computer is debatable. When I programmed one in the late '60s, I thought of it as a computer, but certainly not personal – I had to go to the room where it was available for use by others. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccurate, unfocused, unattributed...[edit]

This segment is flawed in fact and format and reads like a footnote. There was no 'microcomputer revolution' .... perhaps the author is referring to the microprocessor?

I was there, from 1977 to 1993. It's an incredible story and it certainly was a revolution but there is a long ladder of events; mayhem, brilliance, bluster, good guys, bad guys, eureka moments, beta tests that crashed airlines, the Apple/DOS schism and the proselytizing vertical market campaigns...

it's a dense and fascinating story. I wonder if anyone would like to tell it with me, before it disappears.

Humanity is shaped by invention; Invention is nonlinear and organic; intellectual, emotional, competitive or collaborative, driven by unusual peopl

The workday is often prosaic⁶ and repetitive. Take the GPS we rely on - it exists because hundreds of people across the planet spent their entire day scanning every intersection of a roadmap into a FORTRAN program which turned the visual data into X's and Y's... A process measured in months and years. And that's just the database. We digitized the unfoldable maps, we digitized the air (radio frequencies) and we harnessed outer space (satellite) to transmit the information.

Not even the smartest guy in the room would have foretold a future where 'regular humans' would benefit - we built GPS for cops, first responders and Fortune 50 courier companies - who paid US $40 million(ish) for the initial license.

At Microsoft (early 80s) we promulgated a theoretical home computer market; (apocryphal marketing) but our development was strictly office-corporate. Bill Gates wanted Word Perfect to disappear so we could install Word in every office on the planet but we literally couldn't give it away. Nobody wanted to give up Word Perfect. It's almost scary. Bill Gates 'disappeared' the world's most widely installed word processing app. It's gone

When this was going on, a PC cost as much as a new car, cars were the sole habitat for mobile phones; this was our elitist reality until the world was democratized through the holy union of DSL, affordable modems, and Usenet.

It wasn't called the Internet back then and, like GPS, wasn't developed for real people.

Too few 'real people' had PC's at home. But that was about to change forever

..... perhaps that's the miracle within the miracle; software developers of that era were myopic giants. Their profit motives kept them focused on vertical markets, narrowing the field to the point of exclusivity, like color television in the 1960s. When IBM lost the architecture battle, the compatibility wall was breached and PC 'clones' entered the market, and the Revolution began in earnest.

The history of the personal computer is a war story, love story, legal thriller, economics treatise, and elegantly documented social anthropology. If you were there, you're an historian.

m Findlaigh (talk) 11:38, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: Talk pages such as this are for requests to change X to Y with reliable sources to support the change you want to be made. Personal recollections are not considered reliable sources but you can go ahead and edit the article yourself with sources and fix what you think is wrong. Or you can add those same reliable sourced suggestions here for other editors to chase down. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OR tag added[edit]

There seems to be allot of research/claims in this article but little in the way reliable sources to back it up, making much of it a work of WP:OR. Part of the "Etymology" section seems to be observation derived from primary sources, "The beginnings of the personal computer industry" has no overall history sources or rational for inclusion, and further sections are sparse on references or totally unreferenced. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 03:03, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

LGP-30 and IBM 610 redundant examples[edit]

In History of personal computers I replaced the IBM 610 with LGP-30. The Edit History stated my reason: "Deleted IBM 610 as redundant. The LGP-30 is similar, was shipped first, cost less, and was made in greater quantity." I could have gone-on with more reasons: The LGP-30 was manufactured for more years, was fully programmable and did not use paper tape when running a program. LGP-30 also a drum memory about 12x the capacity. The IBM 610 was obsolete when it was introduced...a year after the LGP-30. Fountains of Bryn Mawr reverted my good faith edits. I attempted to avoid an editing war by contacting him on his talk page. He indicated that he would not consider error of his revert by reverting my second comment on his talk page! He likes reverts! (My comment can still be seen in history.)

Objectively the LGP-30 was "was shipped first, cost less, and was made in greater quantity." Specifically 1956 v. 1957, $47,000 v. $55,000, 320~493 v. 180 units according to their respective Wikipedia article cites. Both machines represent the beginning of an era where a computer was built for a single user to sit at a typewriter and operate the computer. Both machines are referenced by reliable sources in their respective articles, though the IBM 610 only has 3 cites v. the LGP-30 which has 20. Can anybody think of a reason to not delete the IBM 610 in this article? RastaKins (talk) 00:13, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As noted here, Wikipedia content is based on reliable sources, not opinion, no matter how extensive. The claim "personal computer" about the IBM 610 is sourced http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/610.html and it is made again in its article. There is no such claim about the LGP-30, it has no reliable sourcing here, and what is cited seems to be WP:OR - spotting something in a primary source, a 1955 document. I would note that the entire section reads like a WP:OR "list of editors favorite computers" with no real reliable sourcing as to the historical significance of what is listed there. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2023 (UTC).[reply]
Thank you for the clarification. I have substituted a cite that connects the term "personal computer" with the LGP-30. RastaKins (talk) 15:50, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Basing this edit on "The LGP-30 is similar, was shipped first, cost less, and was made in greater quantity." means you need a source that states "The LGP-30 was the first before the IBM 610 because it is similar, was shipped first, cost less, and was made in greater quantity.". You cant base it on your own opinion/original research. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article is the History of Personal Computers. It is not a listing of every device ever called a personal computer. Therefore some things came first and others arrived later. Your original complaint appears to be that I did not source a third party article that called the LGP-30 a personal computer. Now I have. Now you claim WP:OR but these cites prove otherwise. In the link provided for the IBM 610, it says: "announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957", "Price: $55,000.00", "180 units were produced." In the link provided for the LGP-30 it says: "was released in 1956", "cost of $47,000", "500 units were sold through the 1960s." Moreover the two cites say both these machines are drum-based tube computers... the exact same technology step. If you are saying that I have to find an article directly comparing the two, then you have set an impossible hurdle. Few of the cites in compare one historic step to the next. Simply 1956 came before 1957 therefore the IBM 610 is not notable in the context of this article. Stop the reverts of my good-faith edits. Your next one will hit the 3RR. RastaKins (talk) 23:58, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"you have set an impossible hurdle" -- yes, I have, Its called WP:V. Your observations of what came before what and in what form are just that -observations, i.e. original research. I am not advocating for the IBM 610 - sources are pointing to the deletion of both - this article has to be based on sources that overall cover the history of the personal computer like that, that, that, or that. BTW a Caltech article on a Caltech computer is not a third party source. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you not care that you just keep moving the goal post? No matter what facts I bring will not deter your reverts? Now your new goal post is cites have "cover the history of the personal computer." Based on the links you gave, everything older than the Kenbak-1 should be deleted. Or maybe not because none of the three articles agree on the beginning of the personal computer era. But the fact is there was a wisp of personal computer activity before the solid-state era and that's pretty interesting. Looking at two dates in cites and putting them in chronological order is hardly original research. WP:V is satisfied in my edit because my cite covers the dates. It also covers the "form." The IBM 610 article mentions "magnetic drum" and "vacuum tube computer." The LGP-30 article says "magnetic drum" and "It contained 113 vacuum tubes" and it was a "simple general purpose computer." Are you proposing that it is unverifiable original research that the "form" does not approximate a magnetic drum vacuum tube computer? Both of these machines match that description. One came first and several came after but somehow we need to retain the IBM 610? Should everything not mentioned in a cited chronological article be deleted? Also, your attempt to invalidate my cite as not third party is flawed. Frankel might have been a Caltech researcher but the LGP-30 was a computer made by Librascope or General Precision or Royal McBee. RastaKins (talk) 03:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In case you missed it, the topic of this article is "History of personal computers", so, yes, sources need to cover that entire topic.There is no moving "goal post" -->Wikipedia has multiple interlocking policies so you can't just decide to follow one and ignore the others. Contrasting sources about A with sources about B to reach conclusion C not explicitly stated by any source is WP:SYNTH. If you want to write a treatise on the history of personal computers as you see it, feel free to do that somewhere else, get it cited by further publications, and then add it here. Otherwise you can't cite yourself as your own authority as to what was significant or what came first. The cleanup from this point on would be to follow sources on the history of personal computers and conform the article to those sources, do you see a problem with that? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let's look at these machines in the context of the whole article: The Simon is an electro-mechanical computer. (Six year gap) LGP-30 is a vacuum tube computer. (One year gap) IBM 610 is a vacuum tube computer. (five year gap) The LINC is a minicomputer. (three year gap) Programma 101 is a programmable calculator. (five year gap) Datapoint 2200 is a programmable terminal. The history of personal computers was a series of technological steps yet here we have two examples (LGP-30 and IBM 610) that appear at almost the same time and occupy the same technological step. I am not WP:SYNTHing. These two computers are described similarly in their respective cites. To demand them to be described in the exact sequence of words in two cites is an impossible goal. Before you revert again, let's see if we can arrive at some agreement to improve the article and do some constructive editing. Please describe what makes you think that these two computers are not similar and how the IBM 610 exhibits a new technology step that was not found in the LGP-30 a year prior. Please cite your sources. RastaKins (talk) 15:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

err, we do not describe what makes the two computers not similar or which exhibits a new technology step, thats the job of secondary sources. If its not in secondary sources we don't cover it here. Again, this is probably a case of deleting allot of whats there and rewriting the rest. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 01:56, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is stuff that needs to be deleted. Maybe lots. But you have been pushing back on deleting IBM 610 even though there appears to be little to justify its existence as it is repetitive of the LGP-30 paragraph. The Front Panel would also be a great candidate for deletion. No computers in the article rely on the front panel except for Kenbak-1. But if I deleted The Front Panel, you would probably revert. One more thing. Vacuum tube computers are mentioned exactly twice in the entire article--in adjacent paragraphs--so they do not contribute much overall to the topic. I am advocating that they should be mentioned just once. This gets you one step closer to your goal of "deleting allot of whats there." RastaKins (talk) 19:38, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Subbing a poorly sourced entry for another a poorly sourced entry was not really an improvement. There are "history" sources that cover this such as [1], which cites the IBM 610 and has the LGP-30 as a footnote. Both would probably be a one-liner in a reworked article of this scale. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:39, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The "Conclusion" section of that article you just cited says, "The IBM 610 Auto Point computer was the earliest personal computer, but it did not use the stored program concept." It is curious that even though the author is aware of the LGP-30, he does not realize that it DOES support the stored program concept. The LGP-30 supported programming languages such as ACT-III and Dartmouth ALGOL 30. Neither would be possible if the the LGP-30 were not a stored program computer. Looking back to the first paragraph of this long discussion, I claimed the same, "The LGP-30...was fully programmable and did not use paper tape when running a program." And you still do not want the later IBM 610 to be deleted? RastaKins (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The stock and trade at Wikipedia is reliable sources, not your WP:OR. Sources have their reasons and, hopefully, that can be figured out. If sources disagree we cite both, maybe as opinion. We definitely do not discount one and support another (is there another?) (see WP:YESPOV again). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:39, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Q1 computer[edit]

Multiple references around the web state that the original 8008 Q1 Corp computer did not have a plasma display but was housed in a Daisywheel style typewriter. This is reminiscent of the PDP-1 user interface. I have not been able to find an actual photo of the 8008 Q1 so it seems somewhat of a unicorn. Djmips (talk) 10:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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