Bob Albrecht is a key figure in the early history of

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

s. He was one of the founders of the

People's Computer Company People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the ''People's Computer Company Newsletter'') and, later, a quasiperiodical called the ''Dragonsmoke''. PCC was founded and produced by Dennis Allison, Bob Albrecht and George Fi ...

and its associated newsletters which turned into ''

Dr. Dobb's Journal ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (often shortened to ''Dr. Dobb's'' or DDJ) was a monthly magazine published in the United States by UBM Technology Group, part of UBM. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. When launched in 1976, DDJ was the fi ...

.'' He also brought the first

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer introduced in 1974 by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) based on the Intel 8080 CPU. It was the first commercially successful personal computer. Interest in the Altair 8800 grew quickly after i ...

to the

Homebrew Computer Club The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that aspec ...

and was one of the main supporters of the effort to make

Tiny BASIC Tiny BASIC is a family of dialects of the BASIC programming language that can fit into 4 or fewer KBs of memory. Tiny BASIC was designed by Dennis Allison and the People's Computer Company (PCC) in response to the open letter published by Bi ...

a standard on many early machines. Albrecht has authored a number of books on BASIC and other computer topics. He is mentioned as one of the "who's who" in

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and editor at large for '' Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 boo ...

's '' Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution''.

Career

In 1955 Albrecht was studying for a master's degree when he quit for a job at the Minneapolis-Honeywell Aeronautical Division in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, which had entered the computer market in April that year. He was working in a large room of engineers on flight control systems for high-speed jet aircraft using analog techniques. After a few months he was invited to join work on an

IBM 650 The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass-produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the firs ...

drum computer, with the intention that he would then promote the use of the computer amongst his erstwhile analog-working co workers. In 1962, while working for

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the N ...

as a senior applications analyst, he was asked to give a talk at George Washington High School in Denver. This incident prompted a career change after his interest was triggered by the young learners' response.

People's Computer Company

After Albrecht left his job at Control Data Corporation, he became involved with an educational nonprofit organization called Portola Institute. Albrecht launched his project called People's Computer Company in October 1972. It is not a company but a newsletter that took its name in honor of

Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful Rock music, rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her "electric" ...

's band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. The newsletter operated with a walk-in storefront to teach children "about having fun with computers". A spinoff newsletter was called ''Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia''. Albrecht's computer-book publishing company, Dymax, also brought computing to the people by teaching young students to program.

Career

People's Computer Company

References

Further reading