There are several versions of what the first personal computer really was. According to some, it was the Commodore of 1977 which was certainly the first mass success. According to others it was the Altair 8800, launched in 1974 by MITS of Albuquerque. For us Italians it was the Olivetti P101 presented at the World Fair in New York in 1964 which, despite Olivetti’s disinterest, was so successful that some specimens ended up in the NASA offices where the moon landing was studied.
But going even further back, others report the LINC developed by Lincoln Laboratories of MIT in 1962. In reality, most agree in indicating the real first personal computer in history, the one launched on September 25, 1973 by a Canadian company, Micro Computer Machines. , at a developer conference in Toronto: MCM / 70. Thanks to a collaboration with Intel, a mathematics professor from Ontario, Mers Kutt, who at one point had made his startup, had made it happen.
In reality, the computer arrived on the market only a year later and was well received by companies such as Chevron, NASA and the US Army. But Micro Computer Machines never found funds to grow and scale the markets and when, in 1977, other personal computers arrived, such as the Commodore and the Apple II, it fell into oblivion. Until in 2011 another professor from Toronto, Zbigniew Stachniak, wrote us a book, “Inventing the PC: The MCM / 70 Story” where he tells well how it was made and with what performances.
I know that every country has its own P101, its unfinished one.
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