

Baggit - Prairie Public's first personal computer
Baggit - Prairie Public's first personal computer
TitleBaggit - Prairie Public's first personal computer
Date of Original1977-07
Description"Baggit" (as you can see by the nice label below), a Southwest Technical Products computer built from a kit by chief engineer Don Geiken. It was called "Baggit", because Don built it while eating his bag lunch.
The silver box to the left was the computer itself. It is believed the standard kit came with 4K of RAM, and Don quickly upgraded it to 12K to allow the user to actually write a useful program (in Basic). On the right is the keyboard/terminal, which fed the video monitor on top. Storage was with the cassette tapes on the left. The terminal was very primitive. If the user wanted to correct an error in a line of entered text, it was necessary to press a special key combination that would move the cursor back internally, but not on the display! So you had to count how many times you pressed it, and keep track of where it was internally, before retyping the text that followed.
This computer was used regularly to compute surveying parameters for planning the statewide system of transmitters and microwave systems, until the huge advance was made in the purchase of a TRS-80 Model I.
Signs on the wall above the computer belong to Don: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, one can not help wondering what is indicated by an empty desk" and "Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions, they are easier to handle than dumb mistakes."
General SubjectEntertainment
Subject (LCTGM)Television production & direction
Television studios
Public television
Organization NamePrairie Public Broadcasting, Inc.
LocationUnited States
North Dakota
Cass County (N.D.)
Fargo (N.D.)
Format of OriginalPhotographic prints
Repository InstitutionPrairie Public Broadcasting, Inc.
Repository CollectionCommunications archive
Rights ManagementCopyright 2010 by Prairie Public Broadcasting, Inc.
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