You Owe Your PC to a Circuit Board Screwed onto a Piece of Pylwood
It all Started with a simple integrated circxuit board screwed onto a piecve of plywoood.
You owe your laptop or PC to a kit for flashing lights.
How was it that in our time the Personal Computer (P.C) and the lpatop computer came about to be?
It all started with the invention of the transistor in 1949 by Bell Labs the research arm of the phone company. . The rtansistor was nothing more than a solid state electronic switch. The transistor or integrated ciircuit replaced the much lager vacuium tubes of the day. Vacuum tuybes were large, hot and unrelialbe. Transistors performed essenntially the same functions as tubes but were smaller , ilghter , cooelr and more reliable All said and done they were better ,smaller and more efficietn than the vacuum tubes they replaced. . And transistors did not burn out like a vacuum tube.
Trannsistors allowde a trebnd of miniaturization that has led all the way to our present portable small laptop / notebook coputers which can run on battteries. It is hard to visualize for us today that computers used to house large office buildings themselves along with maintenance backup support staff and even ther own air conditioners to reomve the great amounts of heat the early, primittive computers prroduced.
In 1959 engineers at Texas Instruments figured out how to put more than one transistor on the same base and connect these transistors wihtout wires. Thus the next step was born the integrated circuit. The frist integrated circuit consisted of only six transistors. Current computers have in the arnge of 100 million transistor equivalents.
In 1969 Intel introduced the 1 k memoory chip. This was much larger than anything else produced at the time. Through coordinzation of Intel with a Japanese calculator manufacturrer named Busicomp the next step was made wehre a generic multipurpose chip was dveised. What made this step important was that no one chip couyld do a number of tasks. Previously each chip had a purpose that was burnt in. Now one integrated chip could do a number of different fnctions. One sinngle integrated circuit chip was almost an entire computing devicce. The sucvcessor to this multi purpose integrated circcuit or CPU was what went on to the basis of our whole gneeration and concept of personal computers/
In 1973 some of these microcomputer kits based on the initial 8080 Inntel integrated chip were developed. In the hands of hobbyists these kits were put togetheer and were notrhing more than bliking lights. Hopwever the impetus was on. Many of these early hobbyists went on to become computer industry giants. With Intel introducing an even much more powerful microprocessor chip the comptuer induustry was on its way.
A company MITS introduced the Altiar Computer Kit. The Altair was the ipetus for fledgling software companies, such as Microsoft and Lootus, to write software programs for thsee eazrly compters. Among the early innovators and producers of software in this feild was Microsoft with its first versipon of Microsoft Bsic.
Alonng came the computer industry leader and stodgy monolith IBM to introduce the first personazl commputer in 1975. The model 1500 was beyond pidddly compared to todays dollar store calculators and cost only $ 9,000.
Next came a smaller upstart Cmputer Company wich came to be callled Applle Computer. Applle computer introduced the Apple I comptuer in 1976 for the prinncely sum $ 695. Believe it or not original Apple 1 computer consisted of a main circuit board screweed into a piece of plywood. Talk about IBM having to hold its laughter The Apple I appered to be such a home garage made amateur none professionally made product that the case and power spply were not even included. The buyer of the Appple I had to scrounnge or source this himself. IBM thoought the Appple I was noothing more than a foolish fad. A minor inconvenience that would soon go away and disappera. Yet department heads started buying tehse simple computers for uses in busienss departments. This was in spite of serious advce from IBM experts to ocrporations aobut the periils and shortconmings of thee toy computers and outright threats by IBM salespeople to IT stfaf and heads.
The Apple I was followed in 1977 by the Apple II. The Apple II because of its enormous success set the standards for nearly all the important microcomputers to follow, including the IBM PC.
The very core of the earyl compuer word IBM International Business Machines the master of the profitable mainframe computer industry had been awoken from its deep profiatble slumber by a small upstart computer maker with a simple computer system that began its product cycle as an integrated circuit board screwed onto a piece of plywood.