Early Computers

Intelligent Systems Corporation (ISC) was started in 1973 by Charles A. Muench, to develop a color computer graphics terminal to compete with the mechanical Teletype and monochrome glass TTY terminals commonly in use at this time.

Their first product, advertised in February of 1976, if not earlier, was the Intecolor 8001 professional intelligent CRT terminal - a $1,395 kit to be assembled by the purchaser, featuring a huge 19-inch RCA delta-gun CRT. The system came with 4K of RAM memory as standard.

It wasnt until December of 1976 when the Intecolor 8001 color terminal could be expanded from a computer interface device into a complete stand-alone computer: For an additional $1,295 ($2,690 total), the Intecolor 8001 could be converted into the Compucolor 8001 - an expanded, stand-alone micro-computer with built-in BASIC programming language.

he H8 was the first computer available from Heathkit, released in late 1977. Computer systems from other manufacturers were also available as kits, but the practice was quickly falling out of favor. Most were available only as fully-assembled systems.

Although the H8 was relatively inexpensive at $379, the stock H8 included only the chassis and the CPU card.
At least one H8-1 memory board with 4K of RAM ($140) must be installed to run any appreciable software programs.
To use an audio cassette drive for data storage, the H8-5 Serial I/O card ($110) must be installed.
To upgrade to the floppy drive system, at least 16K of RAM must be installed.

For reliability, the CPU board came pre-assembled, but everything else was available in kit form. In 1978 the H-17 dual-floppy drive ($675) became available - previously only an audio cassette recorder could be used for data storage.

In 1973-75 Intel Corporation released five Intellec series Microcomputer Development Systems (MDS) for its 4004, 4040, 8008 and 8080 CPUs: the Intellec 4, Intellec 4/40, Intellec 8, Intellec 8/80, and Intellec MDS.

The Intellec 4 (imm 4-40A) is a complete, self-contained microcomputer development system designed specifically to support the development and implementation of 4004 CPU based microcomputer systems. Its modular design provides the flexibility to adapt to any size user system and the resident software facilitates program development.

The basic Intellec 4 Microcomputer Development System consists of 4 microcomputer modules (CPU, RAM, and PROM PROGRAMMER), power supplies, I/O connec· tors, console, and displays.

In 1973-75 Intel Corporation released five Intellec series Microcomputer Development Systems (MDS) for its 4004, 4040, 8008 and 8080 CPUs: the Intellec 4, Intellec 4/40, Intellec 8, Intellec 8/80, and Intellec MDS.

The Intellec 8 is a complete, selfcontained microcomputer development system designed specifically to support the development and implementation of 8008 CPU based microcomputer systems.

In 1973-75 Intel Corporation released five Intellec series Microcomputer Development Systems (MDS) for its 4004, 4040, 8008 and 8080 CPUs: the Intellec 4, Intellec 4/40, Intellec 8, Intellec 8/80, and Intellec MDS.

The Intellec Microcomputer Development Systems (MDS) were complete computers intended for the development of Intel microcomputer based products. They included a main unit with CPU, RAM, ROM, I/O and interrupt circuitry, as well as all necessary software: Assembler, linker, and debugger

The MCM/70 is a pioneering microcomputer first built in 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and released the next year.
This makes it one of the first microcomputers in the world, the second to be shipped in completed form, and the first portable computer.
The MCM/70 was the product of Micro Computer Machines, one of three related companies set up in Toronto in 1971 by Mers Kutt.
It is considered by some historians to be the first usable personal microcomputer system

The MIL MOD8 computer was designed in 1974 around the MIL MF8008 chip; a second sourced 8008 CPU from Intel.
The backplane holds a number of cards that make up the bulk of the computer.
The backplane also had an EPROM programmer but this particular build does not have it. Each of the cards have a purpose.

The Motorola EXORciser was a desktop computer built with the M6800 ICs that could be used for prototyping and debugging new designs.
An expansive documentation package included datasheets on all ICs, two assembly language programming manuals, and a 700-page application manual that showed how to design a point-of-sale terminal (a computerized cash register) around the 6800

The MUPID (Multipurpose Universal Programmable Intelligent Decoder) was originally mainly marketed as a Prestel (or BTX as it was called in Austria and Germany) terminal for the Austrian post office (that operated this service).

However, contrary to numerous dumb videotext terminals used in various European countries, this one was actually a true home computer featuring a Z80 microprocessor, BASIC, a large amount of memory (128kB), a colour video interface and several I/O ports. It could be connected to any colour TV set and provided 1200/75 baud modem, tape recorder and parallel printer interfaces. An external floppy drive unit was also available.

The NorthStar Horizon is reported to be the first microcomputer to ship with internal diskette drives.

With the release of their CPU card, PolyMorphic began selling complete systems.
Their first was the Poly-88, housed in a 5-slot S100 chassis, with additional side-mounted S-100 connectors for the purpose of joining chassis together.
This unit earned the nickname orange toaster due to its orange metal cover, and the fact that the S-100 cards generated noticeable heat.
The Poly-88 was available in kit form, or assembled. It was originally called the Micro-Altair, but after objections from MITS, manufacturers of the Altair, the name was changed.

The 1974 RCA COSMAC Microkit. This is the first commercial microcomputer from RCA to contain the two-chip COSMAC microprocessor (TC 1084 / TC 1085 version).
The processor was developed in New Jersey, but the kit itself came out of the RCA Palm Beach Division. Click image for larger view.

SCELBI was an early model of microcomputer based on the Intel 8008 processor. The company SCELBI (derived from SCIentific-ELectronics-BIology) Computer Consulting in 1973, by Nat Wadsworth. The SCELBI 8H was marketed in 1974 and was delivered either as an assembled unit or as a kit, with five basic circuit boards and provision for memory expansion to 16 kB (16,384 bytes). The company offered input/output devices including a keyboard, teleprinter interface, alphanumeric oscilloscope interface, and a cassette tape interface for data storage. The basic system only used a front panel with 11 switches and LEDs for input and output.

The company also offered a version of the BASIC programming language that ran on the platform, called SCELBAL. Optional modules for strings and transcendental functions allowed the system to operate in small memory configurations. SCELBAL was sold in book format, allowing it to be used on any similar 8008 or 8080 based platform.

The initial model 8H was discontinued at the end of 1974 and an improved model 8B was introduced. Fewer than 150 board sets and assembled systems were ever sold.
Later in 1975, the availability of systems based on the more flexible 8080 processor reduced demand for the slower 8008-based product. The company discovered that the demand for books on microcomputers was very high and published several books; the publishing business was sold in 1982.

Laying claim to be the first fully-assembled microcomputer with a built-in keyboard and television output, the Sol-20 was launched back in 1976.
It had more in common with the Altair 8800s and IMSAI 8080s of the day, than it did with the Apple and Commodore computers that were soon to follow, despite looking more like the latter

The SWTPC 6800 Computer System, simply referred to as SWTPC 6800, is an early microcomputer developed by the Southwest Technical Products Corporation and introduced in 1975.
Built around the Motorola 6800 microprocessor from which it gets its name, the SWTPC 6800 was one of the first microcomputers based around that microprocessor.
It is the progenitor of the widely used and broadly supported SS-50 bus.
The SWTPC 6800 became one of the most popular 6800-based systems of its time, owing to its ease of use and ample documentation. Though rudimentary, the MIKBUG resident monitor built into ROM allows the immediate entry of program data after power-up, as opposed to other microcomputers of its day which required bootstrapping such software.
Southwest Technical Products introduced the SWTPC 6800 in November 1975 for US$450 (equivalent to $2,400 in 2022) in kit form only.
Any contemporary ASCII terminal can be used to interface with the SWTPC 6800.[2] SWTPC sold their own television-set-based terminal, for $275; a crude dot-matrix printer was another optional accessory, for $250

The Tektronix 4051 is a graphics-capable desktop microcomputer produced by Tektronix in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. The display is similar to the Tektronix 4010 terminal, using a direct-view storage CRT display (like an analog storage scope) to avoid the need for video RAM.

An all-in-one design, the 4051 includes display, keyboard, CPU and a 300 kByte DC300 quarter-inch cartridge tape drive in a single desktop case, and includes a GPIB interface. A simple operating system and BASIC interpreter are stored in ROM.

The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor.
The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market GUI machines became available.

The Daybreak ran the ViewPoint (later GlobalView) GUI and was used extensively throughout Xerox until being replaced by Suns and PCs. Although years ahead of its time, it was never a commercial success. The proprietary closed architecture and Xeroxs reluctance to release the Mesa development environment for general use stifled any third-party development.

A fully configured 6085 came with an 80MB hard disk, 3.7MB of RAM, a 5¼-inch floppy disk drive, an Ethernet controller, and a PC emulator card containing an 80186 CPU. The basic system comes with 1.1MB of RAM and a 10MB hard disk. It was introduced in 1985 at US$4,995 (equivalent to $12,585 in 2021).

Daybreak is the final release in the D* (pronounced D-Star) series of machines, some of which share the Wildflower instruction set architecture, designed by Butler Lampson. Machines in this series include, in order, Dolphin, Dorado, Dicentra, Dandelion, Dandetiger, Daybreak, the never-manufactured Daisy, and Dragonfly a 4-processor VLSI CPU developed at PARC and intended for a high-end printing system.

The Daybreak was sold as a Xerox 1186 workstation when configured as a Lisp machine. It was sold as the Xerox 6085 PCS (Professional Computer System) or Viewpoint 6085 PCS when sold as an office workstation running the Viewpoint system. Viewpoint is based on the Star software originally developed for the Xerox Star.

The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse (two-button), Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers, and e-mail.

Introduced by Xerox Corporation on April 27, 1981, the name Star technically refers only to the software sold with the system for the office automation market. The 8010 workstations were also sold with software based on the programming languages Lisp and Smalltalk for the smaller research and software development market.