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30th Anniversary of the Microcomputer
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.
It packed a fair bit of power for such a small computer. It could solve complex mathematical problems and, when the work was done, run simple video games.
The most famous game, of course, consisted of two small paddles on screen: one a forward on a breakaway, the other a goalie, and a little square of light going back and forth. Yes, who could ever forget the classic "Puckong"?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Sure buddy, blame it on the computer
Just goes to show that Canada *did* contribute to the computer industry before Bioware cropped up :)
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
Lies, all lies.
Apple invented the personal computer.
Apple invented the GUI.
Apple invented the mouse.
Apple invented the disk drive.
Apple invented the CD burner.
Apple invented the DVD burner.
Apple invented the mp3 player.
Apple invented the LCD monitor.
Apple invented BSD Unix (with OSX)
Apple invented the idea of paying money for music online.
My mac owning friend assures me this is all true, and anyone who tells you different is a dirty liar!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My PDP 11/20, which I still power up occasionally is older than that.
My 1977 PDP 11/34a, circa 1976, still runs BSD 2.9 just fine
Ahhh...you young people with yer Gooey applications... When I was young we were REAL men and toggled in the bootstrap with front panel switches and loaded the OS with paper tape.
Thomas
My Minivac 601 could play tictactoe using its six relays. Fortysecond anniversary approaching...
Unfortunately, some of what the article says is true: many great Canadian inventors do not get the recognition that they deserve. It appears that Mr. Kutt had created the first computer, which was great.
How many other people do know that a Canadian doctor was the first man to map sections of the brain that indicate smell and other senses in an order to discover what causes seizures? (For the Canadians on here think: "Doctor, I smell burnt toast!")
There are many others worldwide who, unfortunately, do not get the recognition they so richly deserve because companies with more money and power take all of the credit and force the creators into obscurity around their own inventions. This is actually a great story about how an inventor, even though it was 30 years later, is finally receiving the recognition he so richly deserved.
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
. . . all the "I used to travel 5 miles in snow, uphill both ways to buy a 500 byte floppy drive to install in a 1 Hz system"
Why, we didn't even have software, we had to build our own out of zeros and ones. Sometimes we didn't even have ones, so we had to use an "L" and cut the leg off it. Ah, but you tell kids these days, and they just don't understand...
In case you were wondering what it looked like