What is the man who made the world's first personal computer earlier than Apple?

ByKathryn Greenhill

When the history of personal computers is told, 1960 ~ 1970 appeared in "OlivettiWhile "Apple" and "IBM" historical revolution are mentioned,Apple IPersonal computer which was sold in 1971 which will be five years ago "Kenbak-1Not much is known about. Such unknown "World's first commercially available personal computerWe are interviewing BBC News against John Blankenbaker who is the developer of "

The man who made 'the world's first personal computer' - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34639183

John Blankenbaker is a computer engineer and consultant who lived in Brentwood, California, USA. Blankenbaker, who got some money in 1970, thought, "It's time to build a small computer that will affect everyone." About the completed world's first PC "Kenbak-1" Blankenbaker says "I did not use a microprocessor, I made it all from my home garage".


Widely used at the time in 1970Office computerEven a small terminal was a thousand dollars, but Blankenbaker says that it was aimed to keep the cost per unit below 500 dollars by simplifying its function and making it assemblyable . Mr. Blankenbaker has the idea of ​​a terminal that it is "educational", "can satisfy users with simple programming only", "can demonstrate as many programming concepts as possible", "Kenbak - 1 is easy I thought that it was a demonstration machine that could experience computer programming. "

Mr. Blankenbaker pushed Kenbak-1 into the school market as a learning material, but when Kenbak-1 entered the production stage, he noticed that expansion of the market could not be expected in schools where it takes time to approve the budget It was. Although marketing failed, Kenbak - 1 was sold at a price of 750 dollars (equivalent to current value of 4,400 dollars, about 540 thousand yen) in 1971. Kenbak - 1 was an 8 - bit machine with 256 bytes of memory that could store about 1000 words and execute hundreds of instructions per second. Computer experts were enthusiastic, but it seems that it was very difficult for the general public to obtain an understanding that "real computers are available at this price".


Although it was released five years ago by Apple I, since the total number of Kenbak - 1 manufactured by 1973 was only 50, it became "a visionary computer", but in 1987 it wasComputer History MuseumIn the vote of "the world's first commercially available PC" was chosen. Kenbak-1, which was sold at the time at 750 dollars (current rate of 4,400 dollars · about 540 thousand yen), is 20 thousand dollar (about 246 thousand yen) to 40 thousand dollar (about 4,930 thousand dollars) in the auction of November 2015 It is said that there is a premier enough to put the market price of yen.