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From: ddyment@water.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: What's a PC?
Message-ID: <958@water.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-May-87 08:50:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: water.958
Posted: Thu May 21 08:50:09 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 22-May-87 01:34:57 EDT
References: <839@vu-vlsi.UUCP> <3610@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <683@mipos3.UUCP> <3650@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <805@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: ddyment@water.UUCP (Doug Dyment)
Organization: Dept. Computer Science, University of Waterloo
Lines: 24


The very first Data General Nova (built in 1969) was sold to a doctor in
the Boston area who just wanted to play with it to learn about computers;
I have always considered that to be the first "Personal Computer" sale.
Note that this was the fancy low-profile machine that won the industrial
design award (and of which only a few were actually built), not the more
conventional rack-mounted version that became the mainstay of the DG
product line.

Data General Novas later appeared in both the Niemann-Marcus (sp?) catalog
and the annual Christmas gift suggestions issue of Playboy.  Both of these
were long before Altairs.

But my own first personal computer (in my private office; no one else using
it) was the PDP-8, in 1967.  The PDP-8/s, which came along slightly later,
was the first machine to sell for under $10,000.

[the above reminiscence from a former software manager at DEC, and vice-
president of DG Canada]
-- 
Doug Dyment, Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
  ARPA: ddyment%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa       home: 519/888-7895
 CSNET: ddyment%water@waterloo.csnet                      office: 519/888-4451
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