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Website claims "Simon" computer and many other pre-dated Altair

Floppies_only

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Feb 15, 2008
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Location
Washington, United States of America
Gang,

Here is a website that show pictures of many personal computers that pre-dated the Altair 8800. They go all the way back to 1949-1950, when the Simon computer was built by two electrical engineers from area colleges.

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

It's amazing how many early computers there were. Even one that could play four dimensional tic tac toe without a microprocessor onboard.

Sean
 
Good Site, Thanks for sharing this.

I've heard of most of those units, but it's neat to see them all together in context.

It also underscores the importance of (and sometimes fuzzy nature of) definitions, when making a claim of "first". It's something that has lead to endless debate and argument everywhere, not least in these forums. It's good to see the website authors dealing with the definition issue right at the start.

Tez
 
Simon computer..... I dunno - no running examples, no non-running examples, no non-book or non-ad examples, not even pictures of a machine, except above-mentioned book and ads.

Most of the list is pretty stupid - PDP-8?

Um - what retard confuses a PDP with a PC? Desktop or not?
$25K computers sold to the scientific community...?

Come on.... let's get real....

Just because I can find a way to fit a 50's/60's computer in my garage, does not make it a personal computer!


T
 
The Paperclip Computer book

The Paperclip Computer book

Simon computer..... I dunno - no running examples, no non-running examples, no non-book or non-ad examples, not even pictures of a machine, except above-mentioned book and ads.

Most of the list is pretty stupid - PDP-8?

Um - what retard confuses a PDP with a PC? Desktop or not?
$25K computers sold to the scientific community...?

Come on.... let's get real....

Just because I can find a way to fit a 50's/60's computer in my garage, does not make it a personal computer!


T

I really liked the paperclip computer. I found some more information on it, including a book that tells you how it works and how to build one. If I get through my Science Fair Digital Computer Kit experiments and Brainiac (I am going to clone that and offer the instructions to interested parties around this website) O.K., then I will consider building one.

Here's the additional info on The Paperclip Computer:

EMMERICK - Electronic Manual Machine Evaluating Roots and Computing Kinetically

http://www.apparent-wind.com/mbr/emmerack.html

"How To Build A Working Digital Computer"

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/paperClipComputer/HowToBuildAWorkingDigitalComputer_Jun67.pdf

Did anybody else get interested in the Paperclip Computer like I did?

Sean
 
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