The History of Personal Computing

Listen along as David Greelish and Jeff Salzman discuss the history of the Altair 8800 and Kaypro computer. Well… at least listen to David’s clear, quality audio, along with Jeff’s misconfigured source microphone that sounds like he’s talking from a mile away! 🙂

The Altair 8800 is a Tier One computer presented as the first “commercially available home computer.” As such, it was chosen to be the first computer we talk about on this podcast.

The Kaypro was chosen due to a recent and unfortunate event. Its founder, Andrew Kay, had passed away. The computer he created is an early Tier Two computer, representing a line of portable computing devices.

Continue reading Podcast Episode 2: Altair 8800 and Kaypro…

Andrew Kay was the son of Russian immigrants and grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from MIT in 1940 with an engineering degree, then he moved to California to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena before moving to San Diego County in 1949 to join Bill Jack Scientific Engineering. In 1952, he invented the digital voltmeter to precisely measure electrical current. A year later, he founded Non-Linear Systems. In 1981, Non-Linear Systems decided to design

Kaypro II

a personal computer to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable. Though briefly called the “Kaycomp II,” the “Kaypro II” was actually the first marketed model of the computer. This was because in 1982, a daughter company was organized called the Kaypro Corporation and thus the computer was rechristened with the same name.

Continue reading Kaypro…