Thissala (1979)

Public attention, as well as the attention of groups such as this, has been focused on the design and application of large, expensive “super computers.” Our national preoccupation with size and power makes this fact understandable. However, the minicomputer, which I define as a stored program computer selling for under twenty-five thousand dollars, is deserving of much more serious attention than it has heretofore been given. — Robert L. Hooper, from a paper presented at the 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference In the late 1960s, there was a technological gold rush in “small computers”. The PDP-8, developed at DEC by a team led by Edson de Castro, gave in 1965 both proof of concept and proof of market that a computer meant for a desk rather than a room was now feasible. From Christie’s, a PDP-8. It was essentially the PDP-1 from 1959 but made into the bare minimum; it used a 12-bit design rather than the PDP-1 18-bit design. By the end of the decade, small computer companies sprouted…