Personal Computer History

The History and Development of Personal Computers

Introduction

The development of personal computers was made possible by two innovations in the area of microelectronics – the integrated circuit and the microprocessor. These two inventions were necessary to pave the way for the desk top, laptop, smart phones and tablets. They were necessary to facilitate a reduction in the size of computers and to process information faster. The reduction in size made it easier for people to move around with computers and so they became more personalized. The miniaturization of the electric circuits using the transistor was critical in the development of personal computers. The transistor was developed in 1947 by scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratory. The

This computer was designed for a single individual and thus the term, personal computer. Personal computers were used by employees in various roles including scientists and secretaries at Xerox. The Xerox Alto was the first computer to use a mouse. Additionally, the Ethernet was used to network the computers at Xerox. The CPU was the size of a small refrigerator and was designed to find under the desk with the mouse and keyboard on the desk. The Alto employed a graphical user interface (GUI) which became standard approximately ten years Apple’s Steve Jobs on a tour of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) recognized the how useful the GUI was and used it in the design of Apple’s Lisa computer which was in its developmental stage. In fact, the Alto personal computer was deemed to be better than any computers sold before 1984 (Smith and Alexander 14). Scientists at PARC used a system of hardware and software including a monitor that was suitable for graphics, the first hand-held mouse, the Ethernet, a programming language with an orientation towards object and a laser printer to form a local area network (LAN), (Smith and Alexander 15). These were all first for

There were no gadgets like the portable telephone, VCRs and Walkman (Smith and Alexander 15). Computers were basically owned by organizations such as businesses and educational institutions instead of individuals. In fact, individuals would have been required to have knowledge of certain protocols in order to be able to use personal computers. Additionally, up to the end of the 1970’s computers were still very expensive and there was no market for personal computers (Smith and Alexander 15). Furthermore, Xerox’s advertisements did generate the interest necessary for them to dominate the graphics and computer business.

In the same year the Micral microcomputer was introduced in France. The Micral microcomputer uses the Intel 8008 processor. The Scelb-8H microcomputer kit which also used the Intel 8008 microprocessor was also developed in 1973 by the Scelbi Computer Consulting Company. The computer has a 1kB of programmable memory and was being sold for a price of US$565. An additional accomplishment in 1973 was the development of the CP/M operating system by Gary Kildall (Polsson