CONCLUSIONS - Inventing the PC - page 159

document begins with a bold declaration of a new era in com-
puting heralded by the MCM /70's launch:
The introduction of the world's first portable APL com-
puter, the MCM /70, will revolutionize computer usage
over the next five years … The MCM /70 will accelerate the
trend to Distributed Processing, which, in optimizing the
use of data processing facilities, is the natural evolutionary
course for data processing to follow.
The company's argument in support of its claims relied heavily
on an analysis of the profound impact electronic handheld cal-
culators had already had on the consumer electronics market.
MCM was convinced that the speed with which its computers
would gain the “must-have” personal productivity tool status
would rival the unprecedented growth in popularity enjoyed
by battery-operated calculators. After all, the MCM /70 looked
like a desktop calculator and could even be operated on batter-
ies - just like modern, digital pocket calculators. The MCM /70,
computationally a much more powerful gadget than calcula-
tors, “could revolutionize the world of computing in the same
explosive way that the hand-held calculator changed the calcu-
lator field.”
The message was clear and the media liked it: “The MCM /70
… brings to the world of computing what the $100 hand-held
calculator brought to the world of calculators,” wrote Machine
Design in November 1973. 4
The success of hand-held calculators was based on five key
principles: small size, high utility, effortless operation, low cost,
and personal ownership. MCM insisted that these same prin-
ciples, applied to computer design, would open up new and vast
application areas for computers, and that such new-generation
computer systems would be irresistible to professionals, who
would eventually own and routinely operate them. Of course,