24 May
2024
24 May
'24
8:55 p.m.
On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 11:30 PM Dave Dunfield via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Weill .. I certainly expected lots of
"discussion" on these statements
about my Altair:
I have never claimed to be an "unknown drip"(*) on details of computer
history, but here is my reasoning:
With respect, I have studied the 1956 Royal McBee LGP-23 (and later -30) at
length and found one could easily use this computer as a "personal
computer". The machine docs indicate that it was sold for general computing
use, operated in real time by one person. From the training materials I
have on hand, it appears as if this machine was intended as an open system
and people were trained to have at it. The Friden Flexowriter was the I/O
device, a bootstrap was loaded into the drum memory and off you went.
THe LGP-30 inspired Kertz and Kimmeny to write BASIC. One might find it
pretty easy to program "Hunt the Wumpus" using this machine, but it was not
powerful enough to run BASIC as it was written originally.
Pretty cool if you ask me and I don't know of any other stand-alone
computer intended to be used specifically as a one person general
electronic computing device before the LGP-23/30. A first? Not saying
that, but my definition of personal computer is met by the Royal McBee
LGP. Conclude what you want.
If anyone has a spare LGP-23 or 30 please send to me, thanks in advance. I
will come pick it up.
Bill Degnan
First Personal Computer (long before IBM PC)
I am well aware of small systems that predated the Altair, but they
are/were not neary as well known (mainly due to Jan/Feb 1975 Popular
Electronics), and I don't recall that nearly as many of them were as
commonly owned and operated by "people of modest means" and/or not
"in the industry".
And unlike most predecessors it was expandable by a means that grew
onto a whole industry.