Previous: 1974 / Next: 1976 Intro and links to the other years in the timeline | TECHNOLOGY - In the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, the cover story describes the Altair 8800, the first successful personal computer. For $395 you can order a kit to build the Altair yourself or you can buy it assembled for $495. The Altair 8800 comes with 256 bytes of computer memory and uses Intel’s 8080 processor.
- Excerpt from the January 1975 Popular Electronicscolumn that introduced the Altair:
“For many years, we’ve been reading and hearing about how computers will one day be a household item. Therefore, we’re especially proud to present in this issue the first commercial type of minicomputer project ever published that’s priced within reach of many households — the Alair 8800….” -
Ed Roberts, the creator of the Altair personal computer, works with Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop Altair’s first programming language. Their program is a version of the BASIC computer language. The partnership between Gates and Allen is the beginning of the Microsoft company. -
The ARPANET computer network is taken over by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency. | | THE MEDIA - French television begins testing its Antiope teletext service. Teletext is a text-only system without the interactivity and graphics of viewdata. The French viewdata system is called Minitel.
- The Manhattan Cable Television service begins using a videotex and teletext Reuters news system. A consumer version of The Reuters Monitor is carried on two New York cable channels.
- The CompuServe dial-up service becomes an independent, publicly held company.
- News Example:
April/May 1975 — The Fall of Saigon, New York Times. | | |
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