In Pictures: Groovy 1970s consumer tech

The 1970s played host to an explosion in consumer electronics gadgets that changed how we educate, entertain, calculate, and communicate.

Personal Computers

If one were ranking consumer tech achievements of the 1970s, the personal computer would surely be on top. During that decade, computers went from being refrigerator-size machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars to being small desktop systems that sold for under $1000. Three major events of the 1970s helped push the personal computer into the mainstream: the invention of the single-chip microprocessor (the Intel 4004, first on our list of the 11 most influential microprocessors of all time) in 1972, the debut of the MITS Altair 8800 kit (one of our most collectible PCs of all time) in 1975, and the launch of the Apple II (one of the greatest PCs of all time) in 1977.

Credit: Apple

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