Personal Computing: Historic Beginnings

The roots of "personal computers" - that is, machines that are not shared between users - date back to at least the late 1950s. Within a decade, several more of these "one machine, one user" computers were developed; and the idea of a user having direct control over the computer was established, at least within academia.

In 1968, young computer scientist Alan Kay gave a presentation on the FLEX Machine at a meeting of computer science graduate students and saw the first working versions of a new flat panel plasma display technology. This led to discussions about how nice it would be to (someday) place the FLEX computer itself on the back of such a display to make a notebook-sized computer.

A visit a few months later to MIT computer scientist and educator Seymour Papert and to a school with children doing advanced math with Papert's LOGO programming language, produced an epiphany in Kay. He decided to make "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages". This was to be in the form of a compact notebook using both tablet and keyboard, a flat-screen display, GUI, and the wireless networking that defense funding agency ARPA was starting to experiment with.

Related Links
The Machine That Changed the World