Great article.
It’s wild to look back at 1977/1978 and realize how suddenly the personal computer era exploded into the mainstream. The PET, TRS-80, and Apple II all hit the market within months of each other, and while hobbyists had already been tinkering with machines like the Altair, IMSAI, KIM-1, and Apple I, this was the moment computers truly became “consumer” products.
From a technical perspective, the timing made sense—there was a foundation of microprocessor-based systems and a growing community of enthusiasts. But for the general public, it felt like computers went from obscure to omnipresent overnight. They were suddenly on TV, in magazines, featured in books, and even depicted in movies and shows. That cultural shift was massive. For many of us, it marked the beginning of having computers in our homes—something that’s never changed since.
I appreciated the article’s attention to detail too. The bit about the TRS-80 monitor being repurposed from an existing product (with a "Mercedes Silver" color to boot), and the PET’s sheet metal casing being a practical choice rather than a design one—those are the kinds of behind-the-scenes decisions that rarely get spotlighted but say a lot about how fast things were moving back then.
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Great article. It’s wild to look back at 1977/1978 and realize how suddenly the personal computer era exploded into the mainstream. The PET, TRS-80, and Apple II all hit the market within months of each other, and while hobbyists had already been tinkering with machines like the Altair, IMSAI, KIM-1, and Apple I, this was the moment computers truly became “consumer” products.
From a technical perspective, the timing made sense—there was a foundation of microprocessor-based systems and a growing community of enthusiasts. But for the general public, it felt like computers went from obscure to omnipresent overnight. They were suddenly on TV, in magazines, featured in books, and even depicted in movies and shows. That cultural shift was massive. For many of us, it marked the beginning of having computers in our homes—something that’s never changed since.
I appreciated the article’s attention to detail too. The bit about the TRS-80 monitor being repurposed from an existing product (with a "Mercedes Silver" color to boot), and the PET’s sheet metal casing being a practical choice rather than a design one—those are the kinds of behind-the-scenes decisions that rarely get spotlighted but say a lot about how fast things were moving back then.