Two Q1 microcomputers were found at the end of last year, of which only three exist today. The pieces considered to be the world’s first desktop computer were found after fifty years from the depths of the boxes, livescience.com reported.
He couldn’t believe what they had stumbled upon during the cleaning
The owner of cleaning company Just Clear, Brendan O’Shea, had no idea what a valuable treasure his employees found during a routine job. They were cleaning at one address when they found the computers in boxes under the table. After consulting with experts, O’Shea realized that his colleagues had found the world’s first desktop computers using a single-chip processor. To be precise, the microcomputers named Q1 Lite and Q1 Microlite.
These machines are of particular importance, since their first version was released more than fifty years ago, in 1972. Resplendent in orange and black and featuring a plasma display, they are considered the forerunners of the modern desktop. They were also special because, unlike their predecessors, they only had a single-chip processor. The chip itself, the Intel 8008, was launched by Intel Corporation only a few months before the release of Q1. It was considered revolutionary, as it had a speed of 200 kHz, of course this seems insignificant today in the world of Ghz.
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NASA also used such machines
The largest buyer of Q1 computers was NASA, which used Q1 Lite machines at all 11 bases. Others, on the other hand, could not really afford the expensive device, which was sold in 1979 for 20,000 dollars, i.e. more than HUF 7 million. Nevertheless, these machines are of immense importance in the history of the development of computers. And they do a great job of showing how much technology has advanced since the beginning.
The two machines were periodically exhibited at Kingston University with several other key pieces such as the ZX Spektum and the BBC Micro. The exhibition was entitled “Creating the Universal Tool: Machines that built the future”. The Q1 machines are expected to be auctioned after the exhibition, unless a museum or private collector buys them first. You can read about even more objects of special importance in our previous article.
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