Greeitngs ans welcome to the list. There are many I think. It depends on what you mean by a GUI. DO you incldue windowing systems that had a good command line interpretter, but had some programs that were operated with pointign device (mouse), pull-down menus, etc? I would, or at least I'd regard them as a close ancestor. With that in mind : I notice you haven't included any of the 'classic' wokstations. Things like : Suns (68K machines up to the Sun 3, Sparc thereafter, basically. Yes, there was an odd 80386-based one...)_ VAXstations Apollos Classic PERQs. That's a PERQ 1, 1a, 2T1 or 2T2. OK, the 2T4 too, but you are very unlikely to find one of those. PERQ AGW3300 (PERQ 3a). A 68020 workstation HP9000s after hte 900/200 series. Torch XXX (and Quad-X). A strange unix machine with a GUI fornt-end where a lot of operations got you a shell running in a window. For smaller machines, there were several graphicl front-ennds for MS-DOS. And Microsoft Windows ran on non-IBM-compatibles. IMHO the HP150 version of Windows is interesting for that reason. There was a graphical frontend for OS-9 (Microware's OS, nothing to do with the Mac) on the CoCo3 called, IIRC, Multiview. The Beeb should be very easy to find unless you want soem exotic version, likw an Acorn Cambridge WOrkstation or an Acorn Business Computer. I'd go for an HP9830. It's easier to find than an original Altair, it was the first comptue that was an all-in-one machine that you put on a desk/bench, plgged into the mains and typed BASIC on. I'ts certainly a candidate for 'first personal computer. You don't say where you are in the world (this is an international list), but your comment about the BBC micro suggests the UK. ALl the machines I've mentioend can be found in the UK. The CoCo 3 was never officially sol here, there was a version sold in Australian with PAL video output (at least according to the service manual). But the US model can be converted for 240V mains (replace the transformer, a CoCo3 transformer can be made to fit) and used wit han NTSC-rate monitor (most modern TVs can do this). One final point (for the moment). You seem to be interested in the real hardware, which is good, but do rmemeber it will need repairs from time to time. Or you might buy a non-working machine. There are plenty of people here who will help you sort out non-workign hardwre, but ultimately it's you who have to make the measurements and do the repairs. I am not trying to put you off. Plenty of people here have learnt how to repair comptuers, so you can too. I have no idea what your level of electorincs knowledge is either. I am jsut saying that you might need to learn some electronics if you don't already know it. -tony