nd brought with it a change in the way people worked. New Technologies and New Ideas Small, hand-held calculators had provided an idea, or at least a "what if," to some people. Still, in the early 1970s, computers were used for number crunching and printing out long streams of green and white paper. IBM Selectric typewriters were the top of the line "word processors" and Xerox copiers churned out photocopies. Most people never imagined that a computer could process data in real time, be used to write letters, or fit on a desk. In 1972, Intel brought out its 8008 chip, capable of processing 8-bits of data, enough to convey numbers and letters of the alphabet. In that same year, Xerox began working on a personal computer at their Palo Alto Research Center. For the next several years, a team of Xerox scientists worked on the "Alto," a small computer that would have become the first PC if only the development team had been able to convince someone of its usefulness. Likewise, in 1972 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a minicomputer manufacturing company headed by Kenneth Olsen, had a group of product engineers developing the DEC Datacenter. This PC incorporated not only the computer hardware but the desk as well. The DEC Datacenter could have put tremendous computing capability in the home or at work, but management saw no value to the product and halted its development. In the end, none of the giant companies whose names had been synonymous with computers would introduce the PC to the world. There seemed to be no future in an inexpensive product that would replace the million dollar "Big Iron" that they were selling as fast as they could make them. The people who eventually introduced the PC were rebels. Many had spent time in the bowels of the big companies and were frustrated by the lack of vision they encountered. They retreated into their own garages and attended meetings with other...
