[SIGCIS-Members] IBM 610

[Liza Loop]

Glad to see I wasn't the only person addressing this issue. I wrote to
 John earlier:

When I was at Atari in 1978 we had extended discussions about whether to
call the machine we were building a "personal computer" or a
"microcomputer". I argued in favor of microcomputer because this referred
to the technique used inside the machine. To me, a *personal* computer is
any computer under the control of a unique person regardless of machine
size, capacity or construction. I knew lots of people with DECs, Data
Generals and other "minicomputers" in their garages and back bedrooms that
they alone used. From this perspective the IBM 610 is also a personal
computer. Of course, history may not agree with me!

Cheers,

Liza

On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Hansen Hsu <hansnhsu at gmail.com> wrote:

> I’ve noticed this too. Gordon Bell, Wes Clark, and Alan Kay have all been
> on record saying that they considered the LINC the first personal computer,
> as it was also designed for use by an individual (a biomedical researcher).
> Joe November’s excellent book goes into some detail on this. LINC inspired
> some of the creators of the Alto, both in terms of the user’s experience of
> controlling the entire machine, but also in some aspects of its hardware
> architecture.
> I certainly think LINC belongs in the pre-history of the personal
> computer, as does Engelbart’s NLS, but I would hesitate to call it a
> “personal computer” for precisely the reasons you’ve outlined for the IBM
> 610, which is even earlier.
> If one took the criteria to be that an individual had complete control
> over the machine while in use, then TX-0 or even Whirlwind might count as
> personal computers. The term begins to lack meaning at that point.
>
> > On Mar 2, 2016, at 4:11 PM, Allan Olley <allan.olley at utoronto.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> > http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/610.html
> >       The 610 was under development as the Personal Automatic Computer
> (acording to this website and according to Bashe et al. in the MIT book
> IBM's Early Computer, a prototype was operating by 1954 with commercial
> release by 1957) it was intended as a more real time less batch modey sort
> of machine unlike other machines of that time, but no one really seriously
> seems to claim it has any relation to any other "personal computer" either
> in terms of hardware details (it apparently had very ideosyncratic
> hardware) or even as vague inspiration.
> >       The key point I guess is that it pretty clearly has nothing to do
> with the microprocessor based computers of the 1970s and later that are
> usually called personal computers.
> >
> >       I have noticed that the idea of a personal computer and personal
> computing gets used to describe        machines before the microprocessor
> machines of the 1970s. The website mentions the Bendix G-15 as another
> example of this (some apparently claim it as the first personal computer
> and it was released commercially in 1956). The issue here is that any
> computer an individual has complete control of regardless of its
> characteristics (size, intended use etc.) can become a personal computer in
> terms of how that user feels about it and interacts with it. So any
> computer can be a personal computer in that ambigious sense it seems to me.
> It also gets complicated because people's interactions with earlier
> transistor and vacuum tube machines influenced them in designing and using
> the microprocessor machines that are unambigiously personal computers. So
> there are connections that should be made that make it complicated.
> >
> > --
> > Yours Truly,
> > Allan Olley, PhD
> >
> > http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/
> >
> > On Wed, 2 Mar 2016, John Impagliazzo wrote:
> >
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> Allegedly, some consider the IBM 610 Auto-Point computer (1959) the
> >> ‘first personal computer’.
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/plugboard.html
> >> Is this true – even slightly true??
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >> John Impagliazzo, Ph.D.
> >> Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University
> >> IEEE Life Fellow
> >> ACM Distinguished Educator
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Liza Loop
History of Computing in Learning and Education (HCLE) Project.
www.hcle.org
liza at hcle.org
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