Floppy Days 165 - The Sphere, Part 2, with Ben Zotto

Floppy Days 165 - The Sphere Computer, Part 2 with Ben Zotto

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Hello and welcome to episode 165 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for July, 2026.  My name is Randy Kindig and I'm your host for this audio and video tribute to vintage computers and computer history.

For those of you listening to these podcasts in order, this month's episode is the second part of the 2-part series on the Sphere, which was introduced in 1975; the same year as the Altair and even before the Apple 1.

Once again, I want to reiterate what the Sphere was and why do we care?  The Sphere was the first "personal computer," defined as such by Byte Magazine due to its consumer focus and built-in keyboard and monitor.  Many computers can claim the moniker of first "personal computer", and rightly so, but this one has the endorsement of an early, well-respected, long-running computer magazine and they have good reason for feeling this way about the Sphere.  Once you hear the details, you'll see just how ground-breaking this machine was at a very early period of computer history.

Not only that, some of the personal stories behind the machine are simply downright fascinating.

Ben Zotto is the undisputed expert on the Sphere in these times, after finding an abandoned machine sitting on the sidewalk and deciding to adopt it and learn more about it.  He recently wrote a comprehensive book on the Sphere called "Go Computer Now!" that Ben and I spent a lot of time talking about in the last episode -- which again was the first episode on the Sphere.  This episode series actually serves two purposes: first as an interview with Ben to learn more about him and his book, and secondly as an overview of a computer I didn't cover back when I started this podcast back in 2013 with the Altair 8800 and the Apple 1.