Re: Rewriting computing history...

[Will <nospam@noway.com>]

"Byron Q. Desnoyers Winill" <byrondw@telusplanet.net> wrote:

> Ah yes, the "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s
> with the Apple II."  That is rewriting history in its own right.  My
> research suggests that a lot of people were coming up with similar ideas
> at the time.  Apple was simply the darling of the 'revolution' because
> they met with tremendous success.

Not exactly. I was in the market for a personal computer at the time 
(moving up from the 8-switch breadboarded CPUs). There were magazine 
stories about a lot of "soon to be released" like the TRS80 and the 
Commodore Pet. But I shopped every major city in the Northeast, and the 
only ready-to-go PC as we know it today was the Apple ][. I bought one 
reluctantly. The Pet followed by a few months and the Trash80 some time 
after that.

At the same point in time there were some kits that friends tried and 
sometimes they almost worked. There was also the imsai, the Altair, etc. 
And obviously there were some minis that rich people could buy and put 
in their garages, I suppose they were personal computers as well.

But in terms of being able to walk into a store and buy a computer off 
the shelf and run useful programs the same day, the Apple II was it.