In January 1975 the US magazine Popular Electronics advertised the MITS Altair 8800 for $395 as a kit or $495 assembled. This was, arguably, the first micro (or personal) computer; it had a 2 MHz Intel 8080 processor, 256 bytes of RAM and a user interface of switches for binary input and flashing lights for binary output (no mouse, keyboard or monitor…). Within 3 months 4,000 people had ordered the machine. Until this point computers were hugely expensive and only owned by large corporations and universities. Then, as a direct result of this, Steve Wozniak and others founded the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto and in 1976 Wozniak presented the Apple 1 to the Club. The rest, as they say, is history.

Markoff’s (2005) “What the Dormouse Said; How the 60s counterculture shaped the personal computer industry” provides an interesting account of this period, making the point that while we generally recognise ways in which computers have shaped cultures we can forget how important cultures have been in shaping the personal computer (and, equally, all other technologies).

I’m beginning to understand how exciting having one of these groundbreaking home computers delivered to your door must have been; I’m getting very itchy waiting for my Fab@Home kit to arrive and I suspect the parallels are close. Fab@Home and RepRap are the first steps in a revolution that will transform fabbing from being hugely expensive and only owned by large corporations and universities to something ordinary people will be able to have at home. In 10 years time a home fabber will probably be as different both visually and in use to a Fab@Home or RepRap machine as a modern laptop is to the Altair 8800. But Markoff’s point about the transformation and development of microcomputers over 30 years is that early adopters and developers have a huge influence on the evolutionary process. Which is why Fab@School wants to get these early ‘home’ fabbers into the hands of children…

Incidentally, you can still buy the Altair 8800 if you wish… but I doubt you’ll get it to drive a Fab@Home….

Torben

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Fab@School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.