The first personal computer spawned revolutions in machine capability, gaming and entertainment, productivity, connectivity, the Internet and smartphones.

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By: Rob Grosse

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the personal computer, and the relevance of this event to our modern technologically driven society cannot be overstated.

In 1975, the January and February issues of Popular Electronics magazine hit newsstands announcing an affordable computer kit catered to the individual. While large expensive mainframe computers have existed since the mid-1940s, they were complicated, electricity-hungry and incredibly expensive.

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For those reasons, computer ownership historically tended to be the exclusive domain of large organizations and companies.

Tech people had always lusted over the idea of owning a computer; the break-through that finally made personal ownership possible was a general-purpose microprocessor chip created by Intel in 1971, with newer variants containing significant improvements arriving in........

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