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30th Anniversary of the Microcomputer

Posted by michael on from the not-even-a-real-country-anyway dept.

FreezerJam writes "The Toronto Star is running an article on the 30th anniversary of the launch of the MCM/70, the first personal computer, complete with tape drive and APL programming environment. For those of you checking your timeline, this is over a year before the article on the Altair 8800 was published. Microcomputers? Blame Canada!" There's also a story in the Globe and Mail.

12 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. December 1961 by RobotWisdom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My Minivac 601 could play tictactoe using its six relays. Fortysecond anniversary approaching...

  2. Re:And 30 years ago... by Rick.C · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ...back then I would have rather have had one of those macro computers the size of a Costco.

    Back then I did have an IBM-165 which I shared with the rest of the corporation on weekdays, but Sundays from 8AM-4PM it was mine and mine alone.

    Yet I lusted after something like the MCM/70.

    It wasn't until 1979 that I could afford a micro, so you could say that I lusted my way through most of the '70s. ;)

    --
    You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
    "Math in a song is good."-Linford
  3. Re:Ahhh... 30 years? That's nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Bootstrap front-panel input and paper tape, check. 1977? Youngster! ;)

    Been there, done that, early 1969.

    Destroying all but the site's master of a basic utility during inadequately supervised lab work at university before I worked out how to thread the highspeed paper tape reader properly, also early 1969. Sense of caution that this taught: priceless.

  4. the first? by Blob+Pet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That might depend on what your definition of a PC is. This site might beg to differ.

    --
    "...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
  5. Emulator, anyone? by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is the software on this thing available anywhere? An emulator would be neat...the 8008 would be pretty simple to emulate, and the rest is even easier.

    --
    Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  6. first PORTABLE pc by I8TheWorm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This site just says it was the first portable pc.

    --
    Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
  7. Xerox Alto by BanjoBob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know that in the late 60's Xerox PARC was working on what later became the Alto Personal Computer. This computer, introduced outside of Xerox in 1973 had a GUI, mouse, many programming languages (fortran, interlisp, MESA, BCPL, etc.) and a number of very advanced tools. It had ethernet (3 Mbit PUP net) and later even supported color. Having wet my teeth on the Alto, I still feel that it was better in many respects than the early PCs. It was a totally TTL machine using 74181 Bit-Slice processor chips. Ah, the good ole dayz.

    --
    Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
  8. Mark 8 minicomputer in 1974 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Published as a home project in Radio Electroncis Magazine in 1974.


    See http://www.his.com/~jlewczyk/adavie/mark8b.html and other sites.


    I was in high school at the time and subscribed to this magazine. It was many many times more complex than the typical hobbyist project them. I remember thinking I'd have to drop out of school for six months just to find time to build it!

  9. The PDP-8 from DEC by Mikkeles · · Score: 2, Interesting
    is actually, IMHO, the first personal computer and was introduced in March of 1965, predating the MCM by about 8 years.Here is one on a desktop (with dual floppies! woohoo!).

    This was the first computer I got to use hands on (the language being FOCAL and one had to toggle in the bootstrapping code). It sure beat handing in cards for the 360!

    A good starting point to read more is here

    --
    Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    1. Re:The PDP-8 from DEC by Elf-friend · · Score: 2, Interesting
      IIRC, though, the definition of a microcomputer includes that it must utilize a microprocessor - which wasn't invented until '71 (the Intel 4004).

      As to PC, it all depends on who you ask, as the Wintel crowd insists a PC must use an Intel or compatable proc. Accroding to that argument, Apples/Mac's, SPARC/Alpha/etc. workstations, and other non-Intel compatibles are micros but not PC's. The MCM/70 used an Intel 8008, so even Wintel bigots consider that a PC.

      The PDP-8 would probably be considered a mini, especially since the whole PDP line was marketed as mini (at least after DEC's investors let them use the word "computer"). It certainly has everything but the microprocessor, though. Gotta love those old DEC machines.

  10. APL, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Back in 1970 I spent some time in a university group that had a desk-sized underpowered oddity called an IBM 1130. It was built using the same technology as the early System/360 machines, and seemed to have been a pilot for a small business and/or scientific machine as an alternative for mainframes: it had a modified Selectric(tm) typewriter mechanism for interactive IO, and a choice of basic peripherals - paper tape, punched cards, line printers, even mass storage! (10MB plug-in-the-slot cartridges about 15 inches across, no kidding.) Ran an early version of RPG and Fortran II (yep, not even IV which was standard by that time). In other words, it was already a relic that had been overtaken by events, but I did at least get a thorough grounding in assembly programming from it.

    Anyway, one of the slot-in cartridges had a stand-alone bootable APL system, so I got to play with that a bit. Very interesting language, you could do amazing things with just a single statement provided you could conceive the work in terms of vectors and matrices, and it prototyped Perl's write-only characteristics at a time that Larry Wall must still have been in diapers.

    I'm impressed that the MCM/70 got an APL implementation into a transportable box with no more than a tape cartridge for storage, but the language was already seen a dead-end at that time, even in its extended mainframe implementations. Or perhaps it would be better to say a language for a very restricted range of applications: for "real" work you used Fortran or COBOL and RPG. Or, at the micro end that came along at about the same time, Basic, Visicalc, WordStar, etc.

    I'm not nostalgic for the technology of that age. Honest.

  11. Re:What else is based on the 8008? by IM6100 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My dad brought home an IBM 5100 a few times from work for the weekend for us to fool with. It had a cool version of Star Trek on it. It also had a BASIC program that made the line printer print a pattern that played out the William Tell Overture with the sound of the printing.

    Back in 1976 it was a cool machine. It had the APL/BASIC switch on it, too. They were available in a single language version, too.

    $10,000 was a lot of money back then.

    --
    A Good Intro to NetBS