Just Clear, a house clearance company in Britain, recently came across two of the world’s first desktop computers.
The Q1 model was launched in December 1972 with Intel’s 8008 processor and was manufactured by the Q1 company in the United States. With a typewriter-like design and a neon orange plasma screen, the Q1 marked an important – if now largely forgotten – milestone in computing history.
The discovery of the pair of old computers was made during a routine house clearance. Initially unaware of its significance, the company set the machines aside for further research.
An important find
After several internet searches yielded little information, Just Clear founder Brendan O’Shea consulted an expert.
“Our teams find all kinds of items every day during cleanups, some with historical significance. But I never thought we would find something so crucial to the field of technology and the history of computing,” Brendan said.
“I’m told these models are extremely rare so it’s extremely exciting to find some. The computers were buried under a treasure trove of boxes and initially we thought they were two lovely pieces of computer history from the 1970s, which we might understand. We deleted the data if it was not suitable for reuse and sent it to our E-waste stream. However, after consulting with our advisors and conducting research over time, we realized that we had in fact discovered two extremely rare items, of which only three are known to exist in the world today.”
The pair of computers were displayed at a technology exhibition at Kingston University titled “Creating the Everything Device: Showcasing the machines that build the future”. The exhibition included the first generation Atari, Sinclair ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Sinclair QL, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad, Commodore and the Dragon 32, and was curated by Paul Neve and Professor Islam Choudhury.
“There would be no PCs, no Macs, no Apple or Android phones without the Q1 Corporation,” Neve said. “The early pioneers in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundation for today’s ‘everything’ device: the modern computer, which is so ubiquitous in everyday life. We rely on computers for work, communication, productivity and entertainment, but Without the early pioneers none of this would exist.”
Just Clear has yet to decide on the future of the two Q1s. They can be auctioned or sold privately.