It may only be 44-years old but with its myriad switches and a chassis the size of a cupboard, the PDP-8 seems light years away from the modern PC.\n
\nBut this is the great granddaddy of today’s netbooks and smartphones, it was the first computer to be mass produced and sold more than 50,000 – despite costing a princely $18,000 on its introduction in 1965.\n
\nThe PDP-8 kicks off The National Museum of Computing’s PC Gallery, which opened Friday in London, where the story of the evolution of the modern PC is told using 50 machines that defined personal computing.\n
\nBritain plays a key part in this story of how PCs became cheap, user-friendly and infinitely more powerful, and is well represented by machines from the 1980s – the golden age of computer manufacturing in the UK.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
In 1977 the Commodore PET 2001 arrived with a built-in monochrome monitor, a 1MHz processer and up to 8KB of memory.\n\n
\nIt still cost \u00a3850 (US $795 in 1977)- but the closely set keyboard, was dubbed the “chiclet keyboard” because it resembled the popular US chewing gum.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
The RML 380Z was released in 1978 and was the first machine by Oxford-based Research Machines.\n
\nTargeted at the education market it sported a 4MHz processor, 4KB of memory and came with a separate keyboard and monochrome monitor. On launch it cost \u00a33,266.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
Widely used in schools across the UK the BBC Micro was a massive success for its Cambridge-based manufacturer Acorn Computers.\n
\nAcorn anticipated it would sell 12,000 machines but went on to sell 1.5 million.\n
\nLaunched in 1981 at a cost of \u00a3299, it ran at 2MHz and had up to 128KB of memory.\n
\nLin Jones, project manager at The National Museum of Computing, said the British boom in personal computing during the 1980s, which gave rise to the BBC, Spectrum and Amstrad, had inspired a generation of programmers.\n
\nShe said: “Today Britain rules the world for computer games programmers and the brains behind it grew up playing games and programming in Basic on these computers.”\n
\nAcorn went on to produce the Archimedes series of computers and chips developed by its subsidiary ARM are used in many different mobile phone handsets today.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
The IBM PC was first introduced in 1981 and went on to be so successful that the term PC became synonymous with IBM compatible hardware.\n
\nThis IBM model 5150 sported a 4MHz 8088 processor and 64K of memory. In 1981 it cost roughly $1,565.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
This is the Olivetti M20, was based on the Zilog Z8000 16-bit processor and sported a proprietary operating system called the Professional Computer Operating System.\n\n
\nThe computer cost $5,400 on its launch in 1982.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
The Dragon 32 computer was launched in 1982 by Welsh manufacturer Dragon Data.\n
\nReleased during the boom years for British home computing it had a 0.89MHz processor and 32KB of memory.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
The Oric-1 and Oric Atmos were produced by Cambridgeshire-based Tangerine Computer Systems.\n
\nLaunched in 1983, the Oric-1 had a 1MHz processor and up to 48KB of memory. Its \u00a3129 price tag matched the pricing of models of the competing ZX Spectrum.\n
\nThe Atmos model added a keyboard with full-sized individual keys and an updated V1.1 ROM.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
IBM’s first laptop computer in 1986 was also the first machine by the company to use 3.5-inch floppy discs.\n
\nSales of the PC Convertible were poor, as it was hampered by a hard to read and oddly shaped LCD screen, did not feature PC serial and parallel ports and was not much faster than the Portable model that it replaced.\n
\nThe \u00a31,800 ($1,995 in the U.S.) machine ran at 4.77MHz and had 256KB of memory.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
The Apple MessagePad was the first PDA with handwriting recognition.\n
\nDespite offering many features of a traditional PC it was not as commercially successful as Apple had planned.\n
\nThe device was generally known as the Newton and cost more than $1,000.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
People can also try their hand at classic games at the exhibition, from Nutcracka on the BBC Micro to The Simpsons on the Amiga.\n
\nTNMOC is based at Bletchley Park, home to the World War II Enigma codebreakers, near Milton Keynes.\n
\nPhoto credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com
