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Joe Horn · 03-24-2014, 02:30 PM

The only old copy of Scientific American that I've kept is the September 1977 issue. The entire issue was dedicated to the topic of "Microelectronics". It contains Alan Kay's famous article in which he introduces to the world his novel concepts of "windows" and a "mouse" (both on page 234). There's an ad for the HP-97 for only $624.88, and the TI SR-60 for only $1695.00(!). And the Sinclair Cambridge Programmable for $29.95(!). And a whole-page ad by HP introducing the new HP-01 ("With its 200-year calendar, it not only bridges the generation gap, but represents a legacy of sorts.") And an ad for the world's first LCD alarm watch for only $69.95. And a TI ad for their new "bubble memory". And a Beckmann ad that mentions the world's population: 4.019 billion. And a two-page ad "Introducing Apple II" ("up to 48K bytes on-board RAM, 4K supplied; uses either 4K or new 16K dynamic memory chips"). And an HP ad for their 128K memory modules for only $6400 each, and an HP microcomputer with 1 MB RAM for only $59800. And the Cray-1 with 1 million 64-bit words is listed for only $8 million. Ah, those were the days!