Sphere 1
Template:Short description Template:Infobox information appliance The Sphere 1 was a personal computer completed in 1975 by Michael Donald Wise and Monroe Tyler of Sphere Corporation, of Bountiful, Utah.[1] The Sphere 1 featured a Motorola 6800 CPU, onboard ROM, a full-sized CRT monitor, 4 KB of RAM, and a keyboard with a numeric keypad.
The Sphere 1 was among the earliest complete all-in-one microcomputers that could be plugged in, turned on, and was fully functional.[2] Michael touted it as the first "true PC" because it had a keyboard, a number pad, a monitor, external storage, and did not run on a punch tape. In this respect, it is pre-dated by the 1973 MCM/70, among others, but the Sphere included a full-sized display that these generally lacked. When BYTE Magazine did its annual history of the computer, it always included Sphere 1, showing that prior microcomputers lacked the user I/O interface built into the Sphere 1.
The Sphere 1 also included a keyboard-operated reset feature consisting of two keys wired in series that sent a reset signal to the CPU triggering a hard reboot. Wise considered this to be the first keyboard activated reset – a predecessor to the now-common Control-Alt-Delete combination.[3][4]
It is not clear how many systems were sold; production models were sent to computer stores, but the company disappeared shortly thereafter.
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sphere Corporation (September 1975). "The Computer "System" Concept". Byte. No. 1. pp. 94–95. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.David H. Ahl. "The first decade of personal computing". CREATIVE COMPUTING VOL. 10, NO. 11 / NOVEMBER 1984 / PAGE 30. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
You may think that the Apple II (1977) was the first integrated computer. Not so; the Sphere computer (1975) designed by Mike Wise contained the processor, keyboard, and display all in a case that looked very much like a Hazeltine terminal or TRS-80 Model III.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Vintage Computer Festival - Featured Speaker". Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
- ^ Vintage Sphere Computer at the "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum", 2013-03-10
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sphere Corporation (January 1976). "Go Computer Now!". Byte. Vol. 1, no. 5. p. 23. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
External links
- Sphere 1 Vintage Computer - Buy First "True" PC 1975
- (PDF's) Newsletters, Schematics, User manual
- Sphere Computer, a website about the Sphere 1, by Ben Zotto
