Category: History
Why it happened, not just what happened.
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Mattel Auto Race: how a calculator chip became the first handheld game
In a product development office in Hawthorne, California, some time in 1976, a Mattel engineer named George J.…
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The Primo: Hungary’s first home computer, built on a farm co-op’s kitchen tables
Picture the scene properly. A farming cooperative outside a village called Sárisáp, tractors parked in the yard, and…
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The night Romania’s only home computer was robbed in Moscow
The Central Pavilion in Moscow, late August 1988. Engineer Adrian Maxim had already done the sensible, faintly absurd…
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The Hobbit: the Soviet Spectrum that came to Bath by train
The plane touched down on cracked concrete two miles short of the terminal buildings, and Keith Pomfret’s first…
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Super Mario Bros and the launch date nobody can prove
Super Mario Bros is a side-scrolling platform game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka for Nintendo, released…
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The Apple II, June 1977: the computer that arrived in a case
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer built around the MOS Technology 6502, shown publicly by Apple…
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Amiga 500, 1987: the cheap Amiga that won Europe
The Amiga 500 is a 16/32-bit home computer Commodore announced at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las…
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Atari VCS 1977: the $199 console that nearly died before Space Invaders
Atari released the Video Computer System in September 1977 at $199. It was a cartridge-based home console built…
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The Atari 400 and 800: the best home computer of 1979, locked shut
The Atari 400 and Atari 800 went on sale in November 1979, and they were the first home…
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The IBM PC 5150: how IBM built the PC by giving it away
IBM announced the Personal Computer, model 5150, on 12 August 1981 in a ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria…