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The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 16 December 2024. English mathematician, philosopher, and engineer (1791–1871) "Babbage" redirects here. For other uses, see Babbage (disambiguation). Charles Babbage KH FRS Babbage in 1860 Born (1791-12-26) 26 December 1791 London, England Died 18 October 1871 (1871-10-18) (aged 79) Marylebone, London ...
Henry Edward Roberts (September 13, 1941 – April 1, 2010) was an American engineer, entrepreneur and medical doctor who invented the first commercially successful personal computer in 1974. [1] He is most often known as "the father of the personal computer." [2]
A personal computer, often referred to as a PC, is a computer designed for individual use. [1] It is typically used for tasks such as word processing, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician.
A program running in a Kenbak-1 IDE/emulator Kenbakuino, an Arduino-based Kenbak-1 emulator. The Kenbak-1 is considered by the Computer History Museum, [2] the Computer Museum of America [3] and the American Computer Museum [4] to be the world's first "personal computer", [5] invented by John Blankenbaker (born 1929) of Kenbak Corporation in 1970 and first sold in early 1971. [6]
The VIC-20 was the first computer of any type to sell over one million units, and the 64 is still the highest-selling single model of personal computer ever, with over 17 million produced before production stopped in 1994 – a 12-year run with only minor changes. [91]
Invented the concept of a hardware abstraction layer called the BIOS, with both conceptually laying the foundation to all DOS-based operating systems on personal computers. Worked on diskette track buffering schemes, read-ahead algorithms, virtual disk drives, and file system caching.
The Computer History Museum currently says that the Micral is one of the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computers. [5] The 1971 Kenbak-1, invented before the first microprocessor, is considered to be the world's first "personal computer".