Cutting-Edge PCs, 1979

by Popular Science Popular Science

Not just for geeks anymore. Well, maybe you still needed to be
a little geeky. Before prebuilt, preprogrammed computers like
the Apple II and TRS-80 arrived, anyone who craved one of
these productivity tools needed kit-building and programming skills. Note the cassette data storage on the TRS-80, left.



We called them home computers, but the cognoscenti were fueling a business
revolution by sneaking them onto office desks. Among the early PCs on our cover were the Commodore PET, Apple II and TRS-80.



The computers came with between 8K and 60K of memory, about the amount required for a Palm Pilot add-on program today.