What Was The First PC?
The Computer Museum in Boston asked that question in 1986, and held a contest to find the answer. Judges settled on John Blankenbaker’s Kenbak-1 as the first personal computer.
Designed in 1971, before microprocessors were invented, the Kenbak-1 had 256 bytes of memory and featured small and medium scale integrated circuits on a single circuit board.
The title of first personal computer using a microprocessor went to the 1973 Micral. Designed in France by André Truong Trong Thi and Francois Gernelle, the Micral used the Intel 8008 microprocessor.
Control Program for Microcomputers: CP/M
Gary Kildall developed the first commercially successful operating system for microcomputers, CP/M, in 1974. He and his wife established “Intergalactic Digital Research” (modestly dropping “Intergalactic” later) to market it. IBM approached the Kildalls about providing CP/M for its PC. Unfortunately for Digital Research, IBM decided to charge six times more for CP/M than for Microsoft's PC-DOS.
