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The Early Model Personal Computer Contest Oliver Strimpel

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The Early Model Personal Computer Contest Oliver Strimpel The Early Model Personal Computer Contest Oliver Strimpel Content. Every year the Fall issue of The world. The heading ran-"Wanted: The Early Model Personal Computer Museum Report features the Old Thinker-toys". Phil Lemmons, Computer Contest Museum's collections. This issue con­ editor-in-chief of Byte magazine also Oliver Strimpel stitutes a complete catalog of the put out the call in Byte's tenth an­ 3 The Making of an Engineer and Museum's collection of personal com­ niversary issue. a Computer puter hardware as of July 1986. Col­ Offers flooded in-320 in all from Steven Wozniak 13 countries. The early US commercial 9 The Personal Computer lected artifacts not relating to personal machines, topped by the Altair 8800's Collection computers will be listed next year. It (13 offers) were well represented. follows a somewhat unusual collect­ There were also many offers of one-of­ Cover ing event-the Early Model Personal a-kind home brew machines and Computer Contest. single-board computers, mostly still in Schematic of the processor sec­ full working order. Perhaps the most tion of the Apple I computer. In the Spring of 1985, William Mil­ See article on page 3 and photo­ lard, then chairman of ComputerLand, bizarre offer came from Argentina-a graph of the Apple I board on toured the Museum wi th Pat manuscript dating from around 1800 page 8 . McGovern, chairman of CW Commu­ containing a card punched with holes. Reproduced from Apple I Opera­ nications, the world's largest pub­ Said to be from Marie Antoinette im­ tion Manual. Courtesy of Apple Computer. lisher of computer trade magazines, prisoned in the Bastille, it contained a Gift of Dysan Corporation and Gwen Bell, Museum President. coded message to her supporters out­ Millard noticed gaps in our collection side the prison. Overall the response of personal computers and asked how from abroad was disappointing; the the Museum could remedy the situa­ collection still needs foreign enrich­ tion before the early machines dis­ ment. appeared. Bell. half in jest, suggested A total of 137 items were accepted. a contest to find the earliest personal The remainder were declined to avoid computers. Millard took up the idea excessive duplication, or because they enthusiastically and offered Com­ did not really fall into the categories The Computer Museum puterLand's support for the collection. collected by the Museum. The donors The Computer Museum IS a non-profIt 5O !(c)3 McGovern offered to publicize the shipped their items to us for the final foundabon that chromcles the evolution of mformatIon processmg through exhihillons, event and the contest was born. judging by Stephen Wozniak, designer archives, publications. research. and programs. From October 1985 to March 1986 of the Apple II and co-founder of Apple advertisements appeared in CW Com­ Computer, David Bunnell, an early Museum Hours: The Museum hours are 10 AM-6PM. Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday. and munications' magazines all over the MITS employee and current publisher Sunday. and 10 AM-9 PM Friday. It IS Closed Mondays. Christma s. New Years. and Thanksgiving. Me mbership: All members receIve a Stephen Wozniak inspecting the Micral. membership card. free subscription to The Owing to a hitch at US Customs, this prize­ Computer Museum Report. a 10% discount on of merchanmse from The Computer Museum winner arrived just in the nick time for Store . free admiSSion and invitations to the judging. Museum p reviews. Por more information, contact Membership Coordmotor at The Computer Museum. 300 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02210. (617)426-2800. Staff Dr. Gwen Bell. Founding President Dr. Oliver Strimpel. Associate Director and Curmar Lynn Hall. Registrar Gregory Welch, Research Assistant Bonrue Turrenhne. Educahon Dlfeclor Kurt leVItan. Exhlblt Speciahst Gregory Schroeder. Reservations Mark Hunt. Marketing Director Laura Goodman, Store Manager Pot fiorelli, Public Relations Manager unda Holekamp, Commumcatlons Assistant Kathleen Keough. FunctIons Coordinator Michael N. Oleksiw II. Development Director Anne Jenckes, Development Coordinator Susan Versailles. Membership Coordinator Ray Nira, Interim Business Manager Pat Pearson. Acx::ountant Germain DRK Public Relauons AdVlsors Jackson-Blum Shaprro AdvertiSing Consultants Benson ClemonsIBCOM Design The Computer Museum ReportlFall 1986 of PC World, and myself. It was on this occasion that Wozniak announced his intention to donate his personal collec­ tion of hardware and notebooks to the Museum. He also gave a public lecture to a packed house after the judging. We include his talk in this issue as the story behind the machine that epito­ mized the spectacular growth of per­ sonal computing-the Apple II. In defining the personal compu­ ter, we excluded plastic or cardboard educational and toy kit 'computers' (such as CARDIAC, BRANIAC and GENIAC), as well as programmable calculators. We were impressed by machines in several categories. First. there were the highly original designs that had significant impact on the de­ velopment of the technology. Don Lan­ caster's TV Typewriter and Lee Felsen­ stein's Visual Display Module paved the way to the keyboard and screen interface now universal on personal computers. They were each awarded a prize. Next there were the early com­ mercial products, bold design and packaging efforts. We awarded the first prize to the 1971 Kenbak-l. sub­ mitted by its creator John Blankenbak­ er. This small machine contained an eight-bit processor built up from medium-scale and small-scale inte­ grated circuits, and qualified as the earliest personal computer known to the judges. Thi Truong's 1973 Micral was awarded a prize as the first com­ gained honorable mention for com­ The winners were flown to the Museum mercially available microprocessor­ pleteness. There were machines that for "Personal Computer Pioneers Day" based computer. The Scelbi-8B, the must have taken solid weeks of wire­ and presented with engraved silicon EPA Micro 68 and Cromemco Dazzler wrapping and soldering to assemble. wafer medals. From left to right: fohn V. were given honorable mention in this We received many offers of maga­ Blankenbaker (Kenbak-l), Robert Pond (Altair 8800 hobbyist), Lee Felsenstein category. zines, personal computer club news­ (prototype VDM-J) and Thi T. Truong Some of these machines bore testi­ letters and advertising literature. (Micral). Don Lancaster (prototype TVT-l) mony to the e~traordinary zeal of the David AhL founder of Creative Com­ was unable to attend the prize-giving. early hobbyists. We gave a prize to putingmagazine, sent us his large col­ Robert Pond's Altair 8800 and honor­ lection of personal computer per­ able mentions to a Southwest Techni­ iodicals. Volunteers from the Boston cal Products 6800 and a TRS-80 Modell Computer Society are piecing together which came complete with every con­ the offers to create complete periodical ceivable add-on board or peripheral runs. The collections of literature and and with extensive, well documented software will be listed in a later issue. software collections. One Altair had The contest was a success-the even been time-shared! Museum now has a very fine collection Lastly there were the homebrew of personal computers, including machines, some indicating that build­ some little known, but significant ma­ ers had gone to enormous lengths to chines. This provides a unique histori­ make useful machines at low cost. The cal record and a valuable resource for computer based on an RGS-008 kit future exhibits. 2 The Computer Museum Report/Fall 1986 .
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