[bruce511]

There definitely were machines in (larger) businesses before the personal computers of the 80s, but the scales are different.

There were around 650 000 PDP machines produced. By contrast Commodore 64 made over 12.5 million. VIC 20 another 1.5. Zx Spectrum about 5 mil. Similar for the Apple 2. IBM pc made 7.5 million by 1987. BBC Micro another couple million.

And of course yes, these were the first "home" pcs. So as I said, before this time the machines were locked away and only used for "real work". PCs were "everywhere". We had a computer club (with 2, count them 2 machines).

Of course, compared to now they were rare. But my generation entered the work-force and spent the 90s "computerising" businesses. Not the giant corporates but the millions of regular businesses. I wrote software but it was common to have to supply hardware to go with the software.

It certainly was fun being around as an entire industry was birthed. It was very dynamic, things moved quickly, and there was a lot of "keeping up".

We saw it again with web, and then mobile, but they were less exciting in many respects.