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Inventors Of The Modern
Subjects Computer
[Image] [Image] The First Hobby & Home
Famous Inventions Computers
Famous Inventors Apple I - Apple II -
Black Inventors Commodore PET - TRS-80
Women Inventors "The first Apple was just a
culmination of my whole life." -
Avoiding Scams Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder Apple
Basics/HowToInvent Computers
Getting the Money [compter inventions]Following the
Inventor Magazines introduction of the Altair, a boom
Organizations in personal computers occurred and
Service Providers luckily for the consumer, the next
Your Inventions round of home computers were
Copyrights considered useful and a joy to use.
Patent Searches [Apple I Board]Steve Wozniak was
Trademarks working for Hewlett
Packard (calculator manufacturers)
Lesson Plans by day, and playing computer
Young Inventors hobbyist by night, tinkering with
the early computer kits like the
Ask An Expert Altair. "All the little computer
Brain Candy kits that were being touted to
Robotics & Robots hobbyists in 1975 were square or
Science Clip Art rectangular boxes with non
Today In History understandable switches on them..."
Wacky Patents claimed Wozniak. Wozniak realized
Weird Museums that the prices of some computer
Mail/Newsgroups parts, e.g. "microprocessors" and
"memory chips" had gotten so low,
Subject Library that he could buy them with maybe a
month's salary. Wozniak decided
All articles on that, with some help from fellow
this topic hobbyist Steve Jobs, they could
[Image] build their own computer.
Bookstore [compter inventions]On April Fool's
to this topic Click Day, 1976, Steve Wozniak and Steve
Here Jobs released the Apple I computer
and started Apple Computers. The
Videostore Apple I was the first single-circuit
Find videos related board computer, it came with a video
to this topic Click interface, 8k of RAM and a keyboard.
Here The system incorporated some
economical components including the
ShoppingAbout 6502 processor (only $25 dollars -
Your favorite designed by Rockwell and produced by
products, right MOS Technologies) and dynamic RAM.
here Click Here
[compter inventions]The pair showed
Stay up-to-date! the prototype Apple I, mounted on
Subscribe to our plywood with all the components
newsletter. visible, at a meeting of a local
computer hobbyist group called " The
Homebrew Computer Club" (based in
Do you like our Palo Alto, California). A local
sites? computer dealer (The Byte Shop) saw
Wish to share them and ordered 100 units, providing
with others - and that Wozniak and Jobs agreed to
earn money? assemble the kits for the customers.
Become an Affiliate About two hundred Apple Is, were
built all together and sold over a
Luna Network ten month period, for the
Apply to become superstitious price of $666.66.
a partner for this
site. [compter inventions]In 1977, Apple
Computers became incorporated and
the Apple II computer model was
released. The first West Coast
Computer Faire was held in San
Francisco the same year, attendees
saw the public debut of the Apple II
(available for $1298). The Apple II
was also based on the 6502
processor, but it had color graphics
(a first for a personal computer),
and used an audio cassette drive for
storage. Its' original configuration
came with 4 kb of RAM, but a year
later this was increased to 48 kb of
RAM and the cassette drive was
replaced by a floppy disk drive.
[Commodore Pet]The Commodore PET
(Personal Electronic
Transactor or maybe rumored to be
named after the "pet rock" fad) was
designed by Chuck Peddle. It was
first presented at the January,
1977, Winter Consumer Electronics
Show and later at the West Coast
Computer Faire. The Pet Computer
also ran on the 6502 chip, but it
cost only $795, half the price of
the Apple II. It included 4 kb of
RAM, monochrome graphics, and also
used an audio cassette drive for
data storage. Included was a version
of BASIC in 14k of ROM, Microsoft
developed its first 6502-based BASIC
for the PET and then sold the source
code to Apple for AppleBASIC. The
keyboard, cassette drive and small
monochrome display all fit within
the same self contained unit.
note: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
at one point in time showed the
Apple I prototype to Commodore, who
agreed to buy Apple. Jobs then
decided not to sell to Commodore,
who bought MOS Technology instead,
and then designed the PET. The
Commodore PET was seen at the time
to be a chief rival of the Apple.
[compter inventions]In 1977, Radio
Shack introduced it's TRS-80
microcomputer, also nicknamed the
"Trash-80". It was based on the
Zilog Z80 processor (an 8-bit
microprocessor whose instruction set
is a superset of the Intel 8080) and
came with 4 kb of RAM and 4 kb of
ROM with BASIC. An optional,
expansion box, enabled memory
expansion and audio cassettes were
used for data storage similar to the
PET and the first Apples. Over
10,000 TRS-80s were sold during the
first month of production, the later
TRS-80 Model II came complete with a
disk drive to store programs and
data on. At that time, only Apple
and Radio Shack had machines with
disk drives. With the introduction
of the disk drive, personal computer
applications increased greatly as
distribution of software became
easier.
[compter inventions]A last note on
1977, it was the year that the
tradename "Microsoft" was
registered.
Inventors Of The Modern Computer
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[compter inventions]Related Links
Steve Wozniak
Interview with Apple founder Steve
Wozniak.
The Birth Of The Apple Computer - By
WOZ
Steve Wozniak talks about wiring
together the Apple I.
Steve Paul Jobs
A biography on Steve Jobs who
co-founded the Apple Computer
Corporation.
Steven Wozniak
A biography on the co-founder of
Apple Computers.
Apple I Computer
Download an emulator of the original
Apple I, or read the original
manual.
Advertisement For The Apple I
The first ad for the Apple I
computer.
Apple II Computer History
The most complete and best history
of the Apple II on record, written
by Steven Weyhrich.
The Apple II Org
Computer fans are a loyal bunch,
history and over 500 hundred photos.
Microsoft Timeline
Microsoft was made the complementary
software for the hardware of the
first home computers, starting with
BASIC for the Altair.
The TRS-80 Home Page
A page remembering the best and
worst of the Radio Shack TRS-80.
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