1977 · All-in-One Personal Computer · Work 969 of 1,871
A small accountant's office in Chicago on a grey winter morning, on a steel desk an all-in-one computer forty centimetres wide, a cream-white base with a slanted front carrying a box-shaped housing with a slightly domed grey screen in a blue-grey surround glowing soft and even, a plain black strip across the front, at the lower left a black cassette deck with five cream push keys, at the right a small cramped block of tiny white cube keys and a separate block beside it, every key plain, smooth and unmarked, two broad hands of a typist crowded on the tiny keys, a pale blue electric typewriter pushed aside, sleet on the window.
What it was used for
A complete desktop machine in one case: computer, 9-inch screen, keyboard and built-in cassette drive. The Smithsonian gives a MOS 6502 at 1 MHz, 4 kilobytes of memory and 495 dollars, and says the machine was fully functional out of the box, while Commodore could initially make only about 30 units a day. It was designed by Chuck Peddle, who came to Commodore with the acquisition of MOS Technology in 1976. The Centre for Computing History records the announcement at the Winter CES in January 1977 and the first 100 units shipping in mid-October 1977.
What was new
What stands out is completeness: a machine you plugged in and switched on. The price was paid in the parts that were economised. The first keyboard was a tiny calculator-like one; the donor of the Smithsonian's example called it a serious drawback and said the manual contained little. The built-in Datassette wrote at 1500 baud but recorded every block twice for safety, leaving an effective 750 baud. Nine months passed between announcement and delivery, and the 4 KB version was dropped again early in 1978.
What the sources leave open: The 495 dollar price and the figure of about 30 units a day appear only at the Smithsonian; the Centre for Computing History gives no price. The two pages state different things, not conflicting ones. The Smithsonian dates its object to "ca 1977".