Computer historian from Clay County lists landmark devices: Perhaps you had one?

Matt Soergel, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
·2 min read
Computer historian David Greelish of Orange Park has collected a variety of old retro computers. Greelish recently made a documentary, “Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa,” traveling around the country to interview people involved in the creation of this 1980s computer, which was considered a market failure but which he thinks had a huge impact on computers today.

We asked Orange Park computer historian David Greelish, who recently made a documentary on Apple's old Lisa computer, to give us a timeline on the development of personal computers, listing specific models and where they fit in.

Here's his list. Perhaps you had one of these; if so, you could be practically historic.

Greelish writes: There is so much more to the evolution of the personal computer, especially after 1990 and Windows 3.0, but the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) and 32-bit microprocessor set the foundation for constant improvement up to where we are today. Desktop computers were also only the first “tier” of personal computing, as notebook (portables) and handhelds followed as the second and third.

The Lisa was the first commercially available personal computer (consumer-based, with a microprocessor) that delivered what we all use today (mouse-driven, office metaphor — desktop, files, folders, icons, etc. — graphical user interface). Our smartphones are simply a variation of this, with our fingers replacing the mouse. Though it was a market failure, the Apple Lisa set the stage for everything else that followed.

The first microcomputers (8-bit)

David Greelish owns a replica of an Altair 8800 microcomputer, which was the first commercially successful home computer. It was sold out of Popular Mechanics magazine in January 1975.
David Greelish owns a replica of an Altair 8800 microcomputer, which was the first commercially successful home computer. It was sold out of Popular Mechanics magazine in January 1975.

First standardized bus (S-100). (Times-Union note: Wikipedia says a bus is "a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer or between computers.)

MITS Altair 8800 (first commercially successful, mass-produced personal computer), 1975

David Greelish has an incomplete replica of the IMSAI 8080, which when released in 1975 was an early microcomputer in the emerging home computing landscape.
David Greelish has an incomplete replica of the IMSAI 8080, which when released in 1975 was an early microcomputer in the emerging home computing landscape.

IMSAI 8080 (first clone computer, of the Altair), 1975

Processor Technology Sol-20 (first primitive BIOS, or basic input/output system), 1976

First true consumer computers (“out of the box” ready), 1977

David Greelish has a Commodore PET, which was sold in 1977 against rivals Apple and Tandy.
David Greelish has a Commodore PET, which was sold in 1977 against rivals Apple and Tandy.

Commodore PET 2001 

Apple II 

Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1

16-bit computers in the home and business

IBM Personal Computer (PC), 1981

Compaq Portable (first true "IBM-compatible" computer), 1983

32-bit computers & Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

Apple Lisa (Lisa Office System), 1983

Apple Macintosh (Macintosh System Software), 1984

Compaq Deskpro 386 (first implementation of the 32-bit 80386 processor), 1986

Microsoft Windows 3.0 (first commercially successful GUI for "IBM-compatible” computers), 1990

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Orange Park documentarian provides a personal computer timeline