People's Computer Company

People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the "People's Computer Company Newsletter") and, later, a quasiperiodical called the "dragonsmoke." PCC was founded and produced by Bob Albrecht & George Firedrake in Menlo Park, California in the early 1970s.

The first newsletter announced itself with the following introduction:

"Computers are mostly used against people instead of for people; used to control people instead of to free them; Time to change all that - we need a... Peoples Computer Company."

PCC was one of the first organizations to recognize the potential of Tiny BASIC in the nascent field of personal computing when it published that language's design specification in their newsletter. This ultimately led to the design of an interpreter that was published in a publication, which they named Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics and Orthodonti, dedicated to Tiny BASIC. The newsletter's title was changed to Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia for the second issue; the popular reaction to it eventually led to the long-running computer magazine Dr. Dobb's Journal which continued publication until 2009.

The history of PCC and its role in the evolution of the personal computer was described in Steven Levy's book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. In Levy's book, some of the values and ethics of PCC's founders are examined, particularly the ethics common among members of the hacker community.

See also

• What to Do After You Hit Return, or P.C.C.'s First Book of Computer Games
• Hacker Ethic
• Community Memory
• Microcomputer revolution

External links

• Site that is the home of the history of the Peoples Computer Company
• The PCC alumni pages