Chapter 4Homebrew

Are you building your own computer? Terminal? TV Typewriter? I/O device? Or some other digital black box? Or are you buying time on a time-sharing service? If so, you might like to come to a gathering of people with like-minded interests. Exchange information, swap ideas, talk shop, help work on a project.…

Flyer for the Homebrew Computer Club, 1975

Why did the Altair and IMSAI computers generate such excitement among engineers and electronics enthusiasts? Not because they were technological breakthroughs—they weren’t. To understand the wild enthusiasm that greeted these computers, you have to get inside the minds of the people who bought them—and who would soon found their own computer companies. And you have to remember ...

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