WThe Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertisements there, in Radio-Electronics, and in other hobbyist magazines. The Altair is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer. The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.
WThe HP-65 is the first magnetic card-programmable handheld calculator. Introduced by Hewlett-Packard in 1974 at an MSRP of $795, it featured nine storage registers and room for 100 keystroke instructions. It also included a magnetic card reader/writer to save and load programs. Like all Hewlett-Packard calculators of the era and most since, the HP-65 used Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) and a four-level automatic operand stack.
WThe ICL 2900 Series was a range of mainframe computer systems announced by the UK manufacturer ICL on 9 October 1974. The company had started development, under the name "New Range" immediately on its formation in 1968. The range was not designed to be compatible with any previous machines produced by the company, nor with any competitor's machines: rather, it was conceived as a synthetic option combining the best ideas available from a variety of sources.
WThe ICL 7500 series was a range of terminals and workstations, that were developed by ICL during the 1970s for their new range ICL 2900 Series mainframe computers. The colour scheme was compatible with the 2900. The term 7561 is a commonly used though loose term for the interactive video aspects of the 7502 series. The 7501 and 7502 systems were known as Modular Terminal Processors in marketing publications. 7501 and 7502 systems were built at Blackhorse Road, Letchworth.
WThe Intel 8080 ("eighty-eighty") is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility. The initial specified clock rate or frequency limit was 2 MHz, and with common instructions using 4, 5, 7, 10, or 11 cycles this meant that it operated at a typical speed of a few hundred thousand instructions per second. A faster variant 8080A-1 became available later with clock frequency limit up to 3.125 MHz.
WThe 6800 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips. A significant design feature was that the M6800 family of ICs required only a single five-volt power supply at a time when most other microprocessors required three voltages. The M6800 Microcomputer System was announced in March 1974 and was in full production by the end of that year.
WThe S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE696-1983 (withdrawn), is an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800. The S-100 bus was the first industry standard expansion bus for the microcomputer industry. S-100 computers, consisting of processor and peripheral cards, were produced by a number of manufacturers. The S-100 bus formed the basis for homebrew computers whose builders implemented drivers for CP/M and MP/M. These S-100 microcomputers ran the gamut from hobbyist toy to small business workstation and were common in early home computers until the advent of the IBM PC.
WThe Sinclair Scientific calculator was a 12-function, pocket-sized scientific calculator introduced in 1974, dramatically undercutting in price other calculators available at the time. The Sinclair Scientific Programmable, released a year later, was advertised as the first budget programmable calculator.
WTillie the All-Time Teller was one of the first ATMs, run by the First National Bank of Atlanta and considered to be one of the most successful ATMs in the banking industry. Tillie the All-Time Teller had a picture of a smiling blonde girl on the front of the machine to suggest it was user-friendly, had an apparent personality, and could greet people by name. Many banks hired women dressed as this person to show their customers how to use Tillie the All-Time Teller.