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To: samtheman
Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto)

Let not forget Datapoint corporation which
produced the Datapoint 2200 programmable
microprocessor in the form of a PC in 1970.

It included a complete Disk Operating System in 1972.

Aside from being one of the first personal computers, the Datapoint 2200 has another connection to computer history. Its original design called for a single-chip 8-bit microprocessor for the CPU, rather than a conventional processor built from discrete TTL modules. In 1969, CTC contracted two companies, Intel and Texas Instruments, to make the chip. TI was unable to make a reliable part and dropped out. Intel was unable to make CTC's deadline. Intel and CTC renegotiated their contract, ending up with CTC keeping its money and Intel keeping the eventually completed processor.[2]

CTC released the Datapoint 2200 using about 100 discrete TTL components (SSI/MSI chips) instead of a microprocessor, while Intel's single-chip design, eventually designated the Intel 8008, was finally released in April 1972.[3] The 8008's seminal importance lies in its becoming the ancestor of Intel's other 8-bit CPUs, which were followed by their assembly language compatible 16-bit CPU's—the first members of the x86-family, as the instruction set was later to be known. Thus, CTC's engineers may be said to have fathered the world's most commonly used and emulated instruction set architecture from the mid-1980s to date.

Equally significant is the fact that the terminal's multi-chip CPU (processor) became the embryo of the x86 architecture upon which the original IBM PC and its descendants are based.


144 posted on 07/23/2012 12:46:45 PM PDT by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your law is my delight.)
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To: UriÂ’el-2012

This is what you could do with an Alto in 1973. Pity we only sold 2000 units. At $15K it was a steal.


152 posted on 07/23/2012 1:11:19 PM PDT by Mycroft Holmes (<= Mash name for HTML Xampp PHP C JavaScript primer. Programming for everyone.)
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