Inducted May 2015
John Blankenbaker (b. 1930) is credited with designing the first commercial personal computer, which made its debut in 1971. His double-sided design predated microprocessors, relying instead on ICs mounted on a PCB for logic and MOS shift registers for serial memory. Although his company, Kenback Corp., sold only 40 units of the Kenbak-1 before shutting its doors in 1973, Blankenbaker launched an industry that has transformed not just electronics but humanity.