First personal computer

The first personal computer (PC), known as Simon, was released in 1950. It retailed at $600 (£214) and had a six 2-bit word memory, giving 12 bits of memory in all. It was developed by Edmund Berkeley (USA).

Simon is also known as the Simon Mechanical Brain and the Simon Electromechanical Personal Computer. Berkeley outlined the idea of the Simon computer in his 1959 book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think, going on to develop his theories in a series of 13 essays published between 1950 and 1951 in Radio-Electronics magazine.