IBM 610

The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer was the first personal computer, in the sense of a computer to be used by one person and was controlled by a keyboard. The principal designer of this machine was John Lentz, as part of his work for the Watson Lab at Columbia University.

The IBM 610 was introduced in 1957. It was small enough to easily fit in an office. It was designed to be used in a normal office, without any special electrical or air conditioning requirements. It used vacuum tubes, a magnetic drum, and punched paper tape readers and punchers. The input was from a keyboard and output was to an IBM electric typewriter, at eighteen characters per second. It was one of the first (if not the first) computers to be controlled from a keyboard. The term "auto-point" referred to the ability to automatically adjust the decimal point in floating-point arithmetic.

Its price was $55,000, or it could be rented for $1150 per month ($460 academic). A total of 180 units were made. It was a slow and limited computer, and was generally replaced by the IBM 1620.

External links

* [http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/610.html The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer]
* [http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-ibm06.html#IBM-610 IBM 610 Autopoint Computer] 1961 BRL report
* [http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV4001.html IBM Archives: IBM 610 — Auto-Point Computer]