One of the world's first personal computers put up for sale

Kenbak-1 Digital Computer is known to many as truly one of the world's first personal computers, a commercial model. Now this PC is for sale. The first $ 750 device was introduced by John Blankenbeker in 1971, many years before the Altair 8800 and Apple I. The Datapoint 2200 was released before it.

The creator of KEnbak-1 positioned its device as an educational system that allows a student or an adult learn the basics of programming. The processor was not here, and the amount of RAM is only 256 bytes. A total of 50 such devices were produced, some of which are now appearing at auctions and in the “iron” museums.



The cost of such a rarity is quite high. So, one of the models was recently sold for $ 31,000., and one more will be on display soon .



The performance of such a system was not very good (although everything was fine for that time) - about 1000 commands per second. The PC also had no display; indicators were used to display information. In the 70s, this computer was, if not something incredibly advanced, then close to it. Computers were used mainly by educational institutions to demonstrate the possibilities of programming to students.


The author of the computer with his brainchild

Kenbak-1 was not only sold in the United States, buyers were also from France, Spain, Italy, Mexico and Canada.

Blankenbeker is now 85 years old, but he is still following the latest technology. The idea of ​​creating a small PC came to him after in 1949, as a college student, the author read about ENIAC in a newspaper.



Two years later, he studied the principles of computers, and all his further work was related to computer systems. In 1958, he first described the capabilities of Kenbak-1, and began work on creating such a system.