WEBVTT - The Computers That Time Forgot 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.800 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.920 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.880 how Stuff Works and I love all things tech and 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.200 a few weeks ago a listener wrote in and asked 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.360 me to do an episode about a somewhat obscure personal 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:28.920 computer from the nineteen eighties, at least obscure if you're 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.200 from the United States, as I am. If you're from 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.080 the UK, you may be more familiar with it. But 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.720 after I looked into it, I realized there really wasn't 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.920 quite enough information for me to do a full episode 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.520 and and have something that actually feels like a full 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.320 tech Stuff episode, but didn't inspire me to dedicate a 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.639 few shows to some of the early personal computers out 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.159 there that competed directly with the big names that eventually 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.880 went out in the consumer market. So this episode is 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.800 going to be about those machines and the stories behind them. Now, today, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.960 when you think about personal computers, you probably separate them 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:10.680 into two big categories Mac and Windows machines, or maybe 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.880 you say Max and PCs, but I usually say Windows 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.480 machines because Honestly, I think max are personal computers. To 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.280 PC is a term that IBM kind of coined, but 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.200 we really just talk about those being computers that you 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.559 would use at home, like one person at a time 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.400 uses it. We use a shorthand for the general form factor. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.839 There are, of course, other operating systems out there besides 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:39.000 mac os and Windows. There are lots of different Linux 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:43.000 distributions obviously, but I'm talking about the broad categories that 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.000 the general public would identify in the market. So you 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.559 don't tend to run across anything apart from mac os 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.120 and Windows. For the general public, You power users out there, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.639 I'm not I'm not including you in the general public. 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.160 Your your laked, okay, so just just just embrace your lateness. Now, 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.720 those two big names, Mac and PCs grew out of 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.639 the tumultuous early days of personal computing. The Mac is 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:13.000 a descendant of the Apple computer line, the Apple one 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.240 and then really the Apple too, uh, and then later 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.120 on of course the Macintosh computer. Windows machines trace their 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.359 history back to Doss based personal computers such as the 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.760 IBM PCs and their numerous clones. And in the next 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.000 couple of episodes, I'll dive further into the stories behind 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.480 how Apple struggled to stay relevant before it experienced a 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.800 real renaissance, and how IBM came about with their personal 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:44.160 computer and the clones that helped really define what PCs were. 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:46.600 That will be in the next couple of episodes. But 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.760 there were many other computers that companies introduced in the 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.720 late seventies and throughout the eighties, and some of them 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.400 you've probably heard of if you you may have owned 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.560 or have had a chance to play with. But I 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.760 hope you hear about at least a couple that are 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.440 new to you. So what was the first personal computer. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.239 Well that's a matter of some debate, but you could 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.119 argue somewhat convincingly that it was the micro in computer, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.000 which was created by friend Sui Garnell. It became available 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.880 in nineteen seventy three. They used an Intel eight zero 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:22.080 zero eight microchip as its processor. Now, this chip was 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:27.480 an eight bit CPU that could address sixteen kilobytes of memory. Now, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.079 this was certainly the first non kit computer that ran 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.200 off a microprocessor that anyone could buy if you happen 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.840 to have the one thousand, seven hundred fifty dollars or 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.680 so that it cost, and remember that's nineteen seventy three dollars. Well, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.120 there was a computer that actually preceded the micro in 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.560 that some might put forth as a contender for the 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:53.160 first personal computer. But it did not run off a microprocessor. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.200 It had several chips that served the purpose of a 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.520 processing unit, and it debuted in nineteen seventy one. However, 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.720 only fifty of those were ever made, and without a microprocessor, 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:06.560 it's hard to compare it against the computers that would 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.760 follow it. So I really look at the micro in 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.960 as maybe the first. Many of the earliest personal computers 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.680 weren't sold in electronics stores or even as prebuilt machines. 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.279 You would order a kit. You would get all the 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.000 parts and some instructions, and then you'd busy yourself in 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.760 your workspace with various tools and lights to put everything 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.080 together in the hopes that you got it right. The 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.840 Altare eight hundred was such a kit. Micro Instrumentation and 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.800 Telemetry Systems or m I t S MITS was the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.960 company responsible for the design and marketing of this early 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.560 personal computer. MITS had made calculators in the nineteen seventies. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.600 The Altar eight eight hundred gave hobbyoists their first real 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.160 chance to own an actual computer. Up to that point, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.560 computers were big and expensive machines that mostly belonged to 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.880 research organizations or universities or corporations, not individuals. The Altar 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.760 kit came with a power supply. It came with a 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.479 back plane that served as a motherboard, and five cards 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.840 that would plug into that backplane, including the CPU, which 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.400 was an Intel eight eight microchip, and there was also 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.359 a card containing RAM to the tune of two fifty 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.760 six bytes, not kill a bytes or megabytes, just just bites. 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.400 And it had a lid that covered the sides and 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.960 the top of the computer with a front panel that 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.679 had switches and lights on it. Those switches were input 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.800 devices and the light was the output device, as in 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.720 no display, no printer, little lights that would light up 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.240 on the front to indicate the results of whatever it 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.160 was you were programming. So if you wanted to program 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.919 the earliest version of the ALTA hundred, you'd use the 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.120 switches to code in binary. Now, remember a computers read 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.240 information in zeros and ones, So each switch had a 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.640 position that represented zero and a second position that represented one, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.800 and you'd have to move them into whichever position to 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.479 represent the value you wanted, then hit another switch to 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.880 load that set of instructions into the outear's memory before 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.680 going on to the next line of code. This was, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:19.320 as you could probably imagine, a somewhat laborious process. I mean, 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.400 you have to remember that a single character could take 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.240 an entire byte of information as eight bits, so just 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.280 to do one character it gets pretty tiresome to do 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.920 this bit by bit literally, and when you were done, 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:36.599 the output you would get would be in the form 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.840 of those lights flashing up on the panel. And later 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.440 mits offered kits that included paper tape readers, allowing you 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.320 to code on tape first and then feed it into 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.720 the ALTE hundred rather than moving switches manually. Later still 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.520 there were kits capable of sending information to a very 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.880 low resolution screen capable of showing twenty four lines of 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:03.400 eight characters, all an upper case, so it was always 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.719 shouting at you. If you had the patients and the knowledge, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.040 you could program these machines to carry out certain tasks, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.200 but they fall far short of what we think of 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.960 when we consider personal computers today. So rather than go 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.520 through all of the early machines that relied on switches 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.400 and lights for input and output. How about we skip 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.520 ahead of bit and get to a form factor. We 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.000 tend to associate with personal computers, and by that I 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.360 mean a computational device that uses a keyboard for input 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.880 and a display for its primary output. Just know that 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.680 there were other computers out there that did not have 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.760 those luxuries that you could go out and buy or order. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.720 Usually it was a mail order that you would do, 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.040 and you might get a readout from a panel of lights, 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:53.400 are printed page from paper tape instead of having a display. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.040 Just know that those did exist. I'm not going to 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.320 go through all of them because it would just sound 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.880 like a weird catalog from Night teen seventy six. The 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.960 computers that incorporate keyboards and displays had a much wider appeal. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.200 They seemed less intimidating than their predecessors, more accessible. In 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.320 other words, the early personal computers were still very much 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.680 in the world of hobbyists, as very few average consumers 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.800 had much experience with computers or any idea of what 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.040 they would do with one if they got one. I 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.200 do have to mention one thing that Altaire did end 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.520 up doing. It was the launchpad for a multibillion dollar 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.880 company because the Altaire inspired two guys named Paul Allen 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.760 and Bill Gates to write a basic compiler. It's to 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.120 compile code for this computer for the Altaire. They founded 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.160 a company called micro Soft had a hyphen in the 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.880 middle back in those days, and it was called that 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.920 because it was micro for micro computers. That was the 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.240 class of computers. These sort of things were considered, and 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.720 then Soft obviously for software. In nineteen seventy six, another 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.600 famous pair of people, this time Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.440 introduced a kit based computer called the Apple one. The 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.560 kit was pretty much on mother board and you had 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.280 to go out and purchase this power supply and a keyboard. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.920 Not to mention you had to build or or find 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:18.920 a case for the thing. You just had sort of 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.680 the guts of the Apple one. Otherwise, it didn't take 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.679 the world by storm, but its successor, the Apple two, 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.080 definitely did. And then when we were off to the 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.280 races for home computers, and in the next episode, I 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.840 will definitely talk more about the Apple two and its 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.720 effect on personal computers and the marketplace. That same year, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.880 at the Altaire convention, engineers demonstrated the very first video 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.320 display module. This was a memory mapped alpha numeric video 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.679 display for personal computers. This component is what made it 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.960 possible to create interactive games and other types of software 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.320 for home computers. Short after the debut of the Apple 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.200 two came the t r S a d TRS stood 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.839 for Tandy Radio Shack. The Tandy Corporation started off as 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.800 a leather goods company. In fact, there still is a 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.000 Tandy leather company. But the Tandy Corporation expanded well beyond 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.040 leather goods, diversifying as it grew, and one of the 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.120 companies it purchased in nineteen sixty three was Radio Shack. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.160 These days, the company that was the Tandy Corporation is 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.200 now the Radio Shack Corporation. This, by the way, was 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.959 not completely unheard of. There was another company that started 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.760 off doing something that uh it is now is no 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.880 longer known for. So that would be Nintendo, that started 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.360 off as a playing card company and of course now 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.800 is known as a video game console and title company. Anyway, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.079 the Tandy Corporation introduced the TRS eight and nineteen seventy 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.720 seven the keyboard How's the actual computer, and this would 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.040 become a form factor common among those early computers where 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.200 rather than having a separate keyboard and like a CPU 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.440 tower the way desktops today typically have, the whole thing 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.640 was in one big case. You had a keyboard and 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.520 it was attached physically to a case that that contained 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.199 the CPU, the memory, the motherboard, all of those components 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.560 would be inside it, so you would look like just 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.760 a giant, clunky keyboard. Uh. The t R S A 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.760 D also came with a separate monochromatic monitor, meaning only 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.240 one color on their you know, it's just black and white. 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.240 He also came with a cassette drive. The cassette drivee 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.360 was your data storage device. So you would put a 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.360 cassette into the drive and you could save data to 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.120 it or read data from it. And when I say 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.880 a cassette drive, I mean very much like an audio cassette, 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.400 you know, if you had an old tape player. The 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.360 cassette drives for these old computers were essentially the same thing. 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.000 They were just storing the information magnetically on the tape 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.640 inside the cassette, and the drive would read from it 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:09.280 as if it were the same as a music based cassette. 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.319 Now you may think, well, that sounds like it might 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.160 be really hard to locate a specific piece of code 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.440 that you've saved to that particular cassette, and you'd be right. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.120 It's doing it all sequentially, So that takes quite some 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.640 time to track down a specific bit of code. But 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:30.520 that was a relatively inexpensive solution to figure out how 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.160 you could save media from a computer onto something that's physical. 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.480 The computer's microprocessor was from a company called Zilog z 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.360 I l O G. That company launched in ninety six, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.080 and the processor was called the z A D CPU. 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.840 That's what powered the TRS A D. It was Zlog's 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.800 first commercial product. It was based off the Intel A 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.680 D E D processor. One of the co founders of 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:04.400 Zilog was at Rico Fagen, who had previously worked for Intel. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.360 The company developed not only the CPU, but also an 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.120 assimilar based development system for the chip and the chips 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.480 clock speed, which is the speed that a processor can 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.600 run operations at, was one point seven seven mega hurts. 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.480 That then it could essentially run one point seven seven 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.280 million operations per second. That's oversimplifying, but generally speaking, that's 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.720 all you can understand it. It had four kilobytes of RAM, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.400 which a later version of that computer would boast up 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.400 to sixteen kilobytes of RAM, and the operating system for 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:43.400 the computer was basic. As in the actual operating system 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.240 all caps be a S I C Basic. The whole 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:52.439 thing cost five and nine cents, and that included the monitor. 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.280 A year after Tandy debut the home computer, it launched 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.959 a disk drive for four hundred dollars. At that point, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.360 the disk drive costs more than the basic computer system 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.960 that that you could buy without the monitors. So if 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.160 you just went out and bought a computer and you 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.000 didn't need a monitor, that would cost you four hundred dollars. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.440 The disk drive would cost you four dollars. That tells 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.480 you how expensive those peripherals were in those early days. 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.880 Tandy also offered an expansion interface for two d ninety 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.240 nine dollars. It had a printer port to tape drive 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.520 connectors up to thirty two kilobytes of additional RAM, a 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.640 serial port, and more. Tandy reportedly didn't have high hopes 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.200 for the sales of the TRS eighty. They thought, well, 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.760 this is an interesting product, but we don't know if 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.640 there's a market there. The company was surprised when in 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:47.280 the first month alone, they sold ten thousand units. Within 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.560 a year or two, the company offered a slightly more 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.800 advanced model. Not everything was smooth sailing for Tandy, however, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.960 In nineteen eighty Tandy discontinued the Model one TRS eighty, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.600 and it's not the as of sales or because the 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.560 computer was obsolete at that point. They could have technically 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.320 kept selling it except for the fact that the f 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.880 c C had some words for Tandy. They had formed 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.160 some new rules about computers, and the old design that 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.680 Tandy had with the Model one violated those rules. Specifically, 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.720 the Model one generated a radio frequency emissions in excess 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.440 of f c C guidelines, meaning if you had a 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.800 Model one and it happened to be near a radio 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:29.920 or a TV set, it could actually cause all sorts 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.960 of interference. Tandy would make several other computers, including the 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.520 Model to, the Model three, the Model sixteen, and the 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.960 Model one hundred. Later it would introduce the Model For 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.200 another reason the numbers jump around is that the Model 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.880 six team in the Model one were departures from the 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.160 design of the earlier tr S A D computers, but 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.000 it does show that the conceit of creating a numbering 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.800 or naming system for your computers and then abandoning it 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.280 dates all the way back to the earliest day of 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.480 personal computers. So while I often will joke about Windows 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.800 eight jumping straight to Windows ten and skipping Windows nine 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.280 and all these other sort of like iPhone eight going 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.200 to iPhone ten, these kind of ideas, it turns out 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.760 this is not a new thing. It's been around sense 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.920 the earliest days of personal computers. Eventually, Tandy would produce 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.880 an IBM compatible computer called the Tandy one thousand. More 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.080 on that in our IBM clone episode that will be 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.280 coming up not too long from now. Tandy would produce 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.960 more computers in that IBM compatible line and sell them 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.560 through radio shack stores. But eventually the company sold off 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.840 its computer division to another entity, a st Computers in 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.560 the nineteen nineties, and that was that for Tandy. Now, 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.560 I've got a lot more to say about some of 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.840 those early computers from various companies, but before I jump 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.680 into it, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.160 Getting back to nineteen seventy seven, that was the same 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.399 year that the TRS eight Model one came out. Another 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.159 company was getting into the home computer business at that 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:17.240 same time, and that company was Commodore. Now, Commodore had 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.639 started back in the nineteen fifties as a portable typewriter company. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.560 In the nineteen sixties they began to produce adding machines 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.040 and later on calculators. And in the nineteen seventies there 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.880 was an engineer named Chuck Pedal who had worked for 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.600 a company Commodore had acquired, who convinced the founder of Commodore, 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.199 Jack Tramiel, that home computers were the next big market, 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.760 and he even had a design in mind for what 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.600 would become Commodore's first personal computer. That computer was called 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.600 the PET two thousand one. According to Commodore, the letters 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:58.239 PET stood for Personal Electronic Transactor. There are those who 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.639 believe that that's a bit of a fab racation, and 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.480 that the company came up with the name PET first 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.440 and then just went back and made it an acronym later. 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.800 This particular computer had a microprocessor that was designed by 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:16.200 MS Technologies or Most Technologies if you prefer. Commodore had 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.080 purchased this company, and Pedal, the guy who proposed this 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.840 whole idea, had been an engineer for Most Technologies, So 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:31.160 the chips designation was the six five zero two CPU. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.719 This is an incredibly important microprocessor because it was the 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.199 one that powered lots of early computers, not just the 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.960 Commodore machines, but then other devices like the Apple two computer, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.040 so it was a big deal. The six five O 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.560 two CPU, however, was not a superpowerhouse. It was a 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:56.520 one mega Hurts processor. Uh. The PET computer had four 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.960 kilobytes of RAM. Later models would knock that up to 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.720 eight kilobytes, and it also had a built in screen. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.040 So at a casual glance, the PET look like it 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.400 was one of those big, clunky keyboards I was talking 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.000 about just a minute ago, with a small monitor perched 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.040 on top of the case. But in fact it was 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.240 all a single unit and you didn't wouldn't remove the 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.720 monitor from the case. It was all molded together. It 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.080 also had a built in cassette drive for loading and 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.160 reading data, and like the TRS e D, it used 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.520 the Basic operating system. The keyboard for the PET was small, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.240 Some would call it a chick lit type of keyboard, 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.840 so tiny little keys. It made typing on the device 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.040 really challenging and uncomfortable, and this is typical of some 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.560 of those early computers, especially the ones that came from 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.960 companies that were making calculators. The buttons look more like 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.560 calculator buttons than keyboard buttons. The PET also had four 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.400 external expansion ports, allowing users to plug in peripherals, including 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.960 a disk drive. The PET cost sears, which meant it 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.480 was more expensive than the TRS eight, and technically the 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.720 PETS microprocessor was a little less powerful than Tandy's computer. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.080 Commodore first showed off the PET of the nineteen seventy 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.440 seven Winter Consumer Electronics Show, but this was just one 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.200 of the computers Commodore would introduce. Another big one was 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.760 the VIC twenty computer, known as the VIC one thousand 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:29.119 one in Japan, VIC stood for Video Interface Chip. It 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.520 was the first inexpensive color computer available on the consumer market. 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.480 It cost two d dollars when it was released in January, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.600 and it also became the first home computer to sell 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.840 one million units. Like the PET, it relied on the 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.560 most six five zero two processor and it operated at 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.240 one mega hurts. It had five kilobytes of RAM, which 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.719 sounds pretty weird because you typically see RAM and units 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.320 divisible by four, and not all of that RAM was 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.800 available to the user. The computer reserved one and a 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.439 half kilobytes of RAM for its routine operations, leaving you 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.480 three and a half to play with. The computer consisted 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.159 of a chunky keyboard case that housed all the computer bits, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.159 and you would connect this to a Commodore seventeen O 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.800 one monitor via a five pen composite video cable. The 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.639 display could generate sixteen different colors. In addition to the 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.320 display port, the VIC twenty had ports for an Atari 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:31.600 twenty joystick, a rom cartridge port in the back, and 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.920 a few other ports for peripherals. Like other computers I've 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.120 mentioned in this episode, you could get a cassette drive 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.160 for the VIC twenty. They also offered a floppy drive 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.520 starting in nineteen eighty two. Commodore was able to keep 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.080 the price down for the VIC twenty largely because the 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.960 company had its own microprocessor manufacturing division. Because it acquired 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.919 that Most Technologies company I mentioned back in the nineteen seventies, 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.560 it didn't have to purchase components from other companies, so 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.480 that helped Commodore set the price point at an extremely 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.160 attractive competitive figure for those who wanted a personal computer 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.080 but felt the other options in the market were too expensive. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.360 So while Apple had to go and buy their chips 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.879 from Commodore, Commodore was producing their own chips. So that 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.440 was how they were able to keep costs down. And 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.440 we're not done with Commodore yet. Their next big product 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.520 was the one that a lot of people fondly remember 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:25.480 to this very day, and that would be the Commodore 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.600 sixty four. It was called the sixty four because it 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.360 sported sixty four hole kilobytes of RAM. Like the other 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.719 computers Commodore release, this one relied on the most sixty 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:40.840 ten as at CPU, so slightly better CPU than what 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:44.040 it had been using, but still from most technologies, and 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:46.879 this one still operated at around one mega hurts of 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.320 clock speed. The Commodore sixty four had a similar form 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.040 factor to the VIC twenty. It looked like a chunky 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.159 keyboard that you plugged directly into a display, though this 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.360 time you could actually use a color television as your monitor. 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:01.840 The Commodore sixty four would go on to become the 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:06.160 best selling computer model of all time, selling more than 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:10.520 seventeen million units during its life cycle. The Commodore sixty 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.000 four is operating system was wrong basic like the VIC twenty, 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.960 it also had a joystick port. Actually technically it had 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:20.480 to joystick ports. It had a cartridge port and a 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:24.720 serial peripheral port. Originally, the external media storage device was 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:28.760 the Commodore Data set. That's a cassette based media transfer device, 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.840 which was known to be very slow. Later Commodore would 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.600 offer a disk drive system, which was also known for 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.359 being very slow. Not to mention noisy, and I should 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:42.040 mention about those cartridges. So the cartridges are rom based cartridges. 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.800 That means that everything that's on the cartridge is permanently 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:49.080 part of that cartridge. You can't alter it. If you 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.199 have a program on that cartridge, you can't overwrite it, 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:54.600 you can't change it. All you can do is load 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:58.480 the program onto the computer, and then the computer's memory 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.960 could save certain results, and you could even save information 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.960 to an external drive like a cassette drive or a 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:09.200