History of computers
In the 1960's, the computers are mostly considered printers looking back from now. So when did personal computers start to be sold? The first personal computer was developed by the IBM LosGatos Scientific Center in 1973. It was called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) with cassette drives, a small CTR and a keyboard that was fully functioned. The PC Magazine finally designated SCAMP "the world's first computer" in 1983, calling it a "revolutionary concept". The prototype for SCAMP was IBM 5100 which was later launched in 1975, allowing both APL and BASIC- high-level programming languages unlike the microcomputers which allowed only either one of those programs.
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1970's was the revolution of computers since another product launched in the same year as IBM 5100 was the Xerox Alto. The Xerox's palo alto Research Center (PARC) opened this product with a graphical user interface which later gave an inspiration for the Apple Computer's Macintosh and the Microsoft's Windows operating system. Not only that, Hewlett Packard introduced a computer called the Wang 2200 that can totally fit on a top of a desk which had a cathode ray tube and cassette tape storage. Unfortunately, these computers were majorly expensive due to lack of manufacturing so it was mainly for business or scientific issues.
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Early personal computers were called microcomputers. Unlike these days, they were sold in small kits with minimal programming on the computer. The first computer without a kit was the Micral N built in 1972. It was a great success and sold approximately 90,000 units. Later on in 1976, the famous Steve Jobs and Steve Woziak launched Apple I computer circuit board which contained 30 chips, followed by Apple II in 1977. Mass-produced microcomputers were starting to get complicated with companies focusing more on the software application instead of processing hardware.
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During the 1980's, more and more computers were able to be distributed to households with software for personal reasons, games and programming. Despite blocky graphics, lack of colors, and text about 40 characters wide by 25 characters long, personal computers were sold by big amount of numbers due to the easiness and the convenience of the computer. As time went by, more and more products were sold such as ZX Spectrum in 1982 which sold 8 million units, Commodore-64 which sold 17 million and last of all, NEC PC-98 which sold 18 million units!
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