So I just bought, and have been avidly reading: Lamont Wood, "Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented the Personal Computer Revolution" and I was wondering what other people thought of it. (For those who aren't familiar with it, his thesis is in the sub-title. He reckons the first Datapoint machine, the 2200 - announced 1970, shipped 1971 - was the first personal computer, and a direct ancestor of all the PC's out there today. The Intel 8008 - base of the later 8080 and 8086 - was not actually related to the 4004, but instead was done persuant to a contract with Datapoint to provide a CPU for the 2200, to replace its inital CPU, which was built out of discrete chips.) It seems to be a reasonably scholarly work - he did a lot of interviewing of the principals, has made extensive use of archives of contempory written material, and it has some source footnotes (although not as many as would be optimal). So I think he might have a good case.... Any collectors of early Datapoint machines out there on the list? If his thesis is correct (and I think it is) these are very historic machines - up there with Altairs, etc.

Noel

So I just bought, and have been avidly reading: Lamont Wood, "Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented the Personal Computer Revolution" and I was wondering what other people thought of it. (For those who aren't familiar with it, his thesis is in the sub-title. He reckons the first Datapoint machine, the 2200 - announced 1970, shipped 1971 - was the first personal computer, and a direct ancestor of all the PC's out there today. The Intel 8008 - base of the later 8080 and 8086 - was not actually related to the 4004, but instead was done persuant to a contract with Datapoint to provide a CPU for the 2200, to replace its inital CPU, which was built out of discrete chips.) It seems to be a reasonably scholarly work - he did a lot of interviewing of the principals, has made extensive use of archives of contempory written material, and it has some source footnotes (although not as many as would be optimal). So I think he might have a good case.... Any collectors of early Datapoint machines out there on the list? If his thesis is correct (and I think it is) these are very historic machines - up there with Altairs, etc.