The Story of the Altair — It’s only debatable as to which computer was the “first” desktop/personal computer to people who were not there at the time. This is always a problem with understanding history when it keeps getting re-written.

Whatever Happened to the First Personal Computer — the Altair?



  1. sdf says:

    I guess Dvorak is the opposite of the digg mentality “pshhh…that is so 5 minutes ago”

  2. moss says:

    There still are few geeks from Altair left in Albuquerque, still working at Sandia in a couple of instances. Some folks forget it was Altair that to a certain extent prompted Gates’ move there — in the pre-Redmond years.

    And, of course, for the “tee-hee” set — War Games has been on the air, lately, on HD-Net. 8″ floppies, Altair and all — getting Matthew Broderick in trouble.

  3. sdf says:

    Apparently, David’s rig in wargames was outdated (technologically) even then.

    What’s the difference between telling a joke to a digg reader and a 5 year-old? You can tell the digg reader the same joke 5 minutes later.

  4. melvinguy says:

    What’s a digg?

  5. Ben Franske says:

    Uhh, David’s computer in Wargames was an IMSAI not an Altair, but hey I’m a computer history buff so it probably only makes a difference to me.

  6. Miguel says:

    You keep coming up with good stuff! Great work, keep it coming!

  7. Venom Monger says:

    Ok, here’s another request for “whatever happened to…”

    David Ahl and my favorite PC magazine of all time (apologies distributed as necessary…) Creative Computing.



Bad Behavior has blocked 23817 access attempts in the last 7 days.