Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
The Most Fun You Can Have With 4 LEDs
By James Grahame
Milton Bradley scored a smash hit in 1978 with Simon, a dinner plate sized electronic game with four lighted buttons. Its "repeat the pattern" gameplay took seconds to learn, but hours to master.
Simon spawned many clones, including Pocket Repeat (manufactured by Tiger). This tiny handheld game first appeared in Radio Shack's 1981 catalog, and I picked one up on sale just after that Christmas. It received sporadic bursts of attention before getting lost during my college years (most likely during a not-so-clever drinking game).
A decade or so later, I stumbled across an updated version in a clearance bin and adopted it. It now lives in my office, where it amuses visitors and occasionally exercises my withered synapses.
