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End User History - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PeterHale/EndUserHistory.htm.

Personal Computers

The development of the Altair computer in 1975, and the Apple II helped create the personal computer revolution of the late seventies and eighties.

In the early 1980s many varieties of personal computers were developed for home use and business use, the BASIC computer language was popular for programming with these computers. One of these personal computers the BBC micro was developed for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. The project was initiated largely in response to an extremely influential BBC documentary The Mighty Micro, in which Dr Cristopher Evans from the National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming personal computer revolution and its impact on the economy, industry and lifestyle of the United Kingdom.

During the 1980s ownership of personal computers became increasingly popular and many home users programmed using BASIC. In the early eighties IBM developed the first personal computer built from off the shelf parts (called open architecture). This included a command line operating system written by Microsoft and the Microsoft BASIC programming language.

Apple developed the GUI further for the Lisa that later became the Macintosh (Mac). The IBM style PC became most popular for business applications, while the Apple Mac was often used for Desktop publishing.

Links

Apple II - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II - Wikipedia.

Apple Lisa - The First Affordable GUI - Lisa 1 Jan-83 Jan-84, Lisa 2 Jan-84 Apr-85.

Altair 8800 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 - Wikipedia.

BBC Micro - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro - Wikipedia.

BBC Technology news - Home computing pioneer honoured - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7162935.stm - One of the designers of the classic BBC Micro computer has been recognised in the New Year Honours list. - Jonathan Fildes - 29 December 2007.

Blinkenlights Archaeologcal Institute - http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml - Pop Quiz: What was the first personal computer?

Erik Klein's Vintage Computers - http://www.vintage-computer.com.

Inventors - http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm - The History of Computers.

Inventors of the Modern Computer - The History of the IBM PC - International Business Machines.

I think, therefore I Woz - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6077374.stm - BBC News - Technology - Steve Wozniak,Apple - 25th October 2006.

Personal computer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer - Wikipedia.

PC - History - http://www.pc-history.org/ - Pre-IBM PC Computers.

Developed by Peter Hale, 2006. The University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.