What, exactly, was the origin of the ubiquitous desktop computer? A strong candidate highlighted by Youtube channel Alexander the ok (via Reddit) is the Minuteman D-17b, the computer that powered the eponymous intercontinental ballistic missile from the early 1960s.
The first question that springs from this claim is what the hell does a computer in a missile have to do with desktop computing? The answer, surprisingly, is that computers from the missiles were given to universities and other research institutions, free of charge, at the end of the 1960s.
