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Kenbak: Maybe the first PC, but now you can own one
2 comments- IT TOPICS:Development, Hardware, Personal Technology
"Controversial" only begins to describe the ongoing debate about what was the first personal computer. A widely accepted answer is John Blankenbaker's Kenbak-1, developed in his garage from 1970-1971. Others prefer honoring the Datapoint 2200, but that was more of a business- and industrial-oriented minicomputer. Alas, Blankenbaker and his associates created less than 50 Kenbak-1 computers, with only 14 or 15 known to still exist -- so expect to pay anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 if you find one today. The good news: Blankenbaker recently gave his endorsement to a new replica kit dubbed the "Kenbak-1 Series 2" from Grant Stockly (of AltairKit.com fame) with the first units priced at $999, based on original blank PCBs and flawless copies of the original manuals.
Other kits are sexier, like the Briel Computers Apple 1, or incredibly geekier, like Spare Time Gizmo's PDP-8/E clone, or just a whole lot simpler, for example, Minds-On Toys' Digi-Comp 1 v. 2.0. But none of those let you impress friends with a "first PC" claim! So give Grant's kit a try: he's got a good reputation in our hobby, he built something very unique, and the accuracy of his kit vs. the original (thanks to Kenbak historians like Erik Klein) is very impressive.
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