Computer History

I am just starting to compile a page of links here concerning the history of computers. My own history with computers dates back 21 years to 1976. I got my first computer in about 1977: a Netronics ELF II kit. My father assembled it because he thought it would be too difficult for me to solder. Actually, it was too difficult for him to solder; his soldering was fine for vacuum tube based projects but not for fine work with integrated circuits. As a result, I learned to be quite good at the art of computer repair early on.

General

• Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers
• Personal Computers: History and Developmentprovides a general overview. Unfortunately, they are a bit clueless. It appears to be written entirely from reference source by people who did not participate in or experience the history first hand. For example, They seem to think that Apple invented the disk drive; they didn't, they just bastardized it to make a non-standard disk drive that could not exchange disks with the standard disk drives on all other computer that was cheaper for apple to make and more expensive for the consumer to buy in the long run (it might have been cheaper at first, I don't recall).

PC-clone history

Workstation history

Macintosh history

• http://www.uce.com/machist.htmlhas a nice table which appears to show the key specs (although it is missing some very key specs like bus type) and begining and ending dates of production for all the MAC models.
• J. Michael Farmer has a A history written in Japanese. Dates and models are still recognizeable.
• http://tech.ed.gifu-u.ac.jp/people/masa/mac.html is also in japanese.

  Other microcomputers

  Supercomputers

  Minicomputers, mainframes, and other dinosaurs

  Chronology

  This file is maintained by Mark Whitis (whitis@freelabs.com).

  1947	The transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories
  1971	Intel 4004
  1972	Intel 8008
  1975	MITS Altair 8800
  1975	Zilog Z-80 Microprocessor
  1974	Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a version of BASIC for the Altair and started Microsoft Corporation
  1977	Digital Research introduced CP/M operating system

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