It's great that this documentary interviews so many of the luminaries of the 1970s computer industry. Very important to get their stories now, because they'll sadly be fewer of them around in 20 years.
I finagled the very first purchase of a PC by the State of NH in about October 1985. As the head of the state IT Department set the IBM computer on the table in the room of the NH Fish and Game Department where I was the first black bear biologist he said, "You know this is the very first one the state has ever purchased".
The Altair came about due to big corporate scheming. MITS and Commodore were among many electronic calculator manufacturers in the early 70's, using chips supplied by big chip vendors like TI and Intel. This all came crashing down when TI decided to manufacture the calculators themselves, undercutting all the 3rd party manufacturers on the market. MITS's business basically dried up overnight. Faced with extinction, Ed Roberts landed upon the idea of making a platform based on the 8080 chip, which Intel was selling to the calculator market. However, since calculators weren't selling anymore, the Altair couldn't be just a calculator. Jack Tremmel's Commodore remained competitive in the calculator market by buying Chuck Peddle's MOSTech (who in turn were also nearly bankrupt due to the calculator market collapse). Making a PC wasn't on the cards for Commodore originally, but the acquisition gave Chuck Peddle the resources he needed to bring his low cost 6502 CPU to the wider market. Which is turn gave Wozniak the low cost CPU he needed for his own dream PC design.
It's great that this documentary interviews so many of the luminaries of the 1970s computer industry. Very important to get their stories now, because they'll sadly be fewer of them around in 20 years.
I finagled the very first purchase of a PC by the State of NH in about October 1985. As the head of the state IT Department set the IBM computer on the table in the room of the NH Fish and Game Department where I was the first black bear biologist he said, "You know this is the very first one the state has ever purchased".
When I was in school in the 1970s, a teacher told us that computers are just a passing fad because "they don't do anything useful".
The Altair came about due to big corporate scheming. MITS and Commodore were among many electronic calculator manufacturers in the early 70's, using chips supplied by big chip vendors like TI and Intel. This all came crashing down when TI decided to manufacture the calculators themselves, undercutting all the 3rd party manufacturers on the market. MITS's business basically dried up overnight. Faced with extinction, Ed Roberts landed upon the idea of making a platform based on the 8080 chip, which Intel was selling to the calculator market. However, since calculators weren't selling anymore, the Altair couldn't be just a calculator. Jack Tremmel's Commodore remained competitive in the calculator market by buying Chuck Peddle's MOSTech (who in turn were also nearly bankrupt due to the calculator market collapse). Making a PC wasn't on the cards for Commodore originally, but the acquisition gave Chuck Peddle the resources he needed to bring his low cost 6502 CPU to the wider market. Which is turn gave Wozniak the low cost CPU he needed for his own dream PC design.
Makes me want to throw out that quantum computer i got up and running a few year back, think we could do without that.
i love this show
Wow
What's with all the hippy dippy crap? The valley started thanks to military companies
There were indegeneous american in california
28:00 wowwww...what in the indoctrination was that?