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Wesley Clark Builds the LINC, Perhaps the First Mini-Computer

5/1961 to 1962
Wesley Clark demonstrating of the first Laboratory Instrument Computer, or LINC in 1962.

Wesley Clark demonstrating of the first Laboratory Instrument Computer, or LINC in 1962.

In May 1961 Wesley A. Clark, a computer scientist at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, started building the LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer). This machine, which some later called both the first mini-computer and a forerunner of  the personal computer, was first used in 1962. It was small table-top size, “low cost” ($43,000), had keyboard and display, file system and an interactive operating system. It's design was placed in the public domain. Eventually fifty of the machines were sold by Digital Equipment Corporation.

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