{"id":1208,"date":"2016-09-02T14:18:19","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T19:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2017-02-01T14:05:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T19:05:29","slug":"ed-smith-and-the-imagination-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1208\/ed-smith-and-the-imagination-machine","title":{"rendered":"Ed Smith and the Imagination Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3063298\/breaking-the-status-quo\/ed-smith-and-the-imagination-machine-the-untold-story-of-a-black-vid\" target=\"_blank\"><img src='\/wp-content\/ed_smith.jpg' alt='Ed Smith and the Imagination Machine' class=\"centered shadow\" width=\"420\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Just today, FastCompany published my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3063298\/breaking-the-status-quo\/ed-smith-and-the-imagination-machine-the-untold-story-of-a-black-vid\" target=\"_blank\">in-depth history of Ed Smith and APF Electronics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>APF was responsible for several video game consoles in the 1970s (like the MP1000) and a personal computer called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1135\/retro-scan-of-the-week-apf-imagination-machine\" target=\"_blank\">The Imagination Machine<\/a>.  Ed Smith was the primary electronics designer for the MP1000, and he has quite a story to tell.<\/p>\n<p>I think you guys will really enjoy the piece.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thirty-seven years ago, New York-based APF Electronics, Inc. released The Imagination Machine, a hybrid video game console and personal computer designed to make a consumer&#8217;s first experience with computing as painless and inexpensive as possible.<\/p>\n<p>APF&#8217;s playful computer (and its game console, the MP1000) never rivaled the impact of products from Apple or Atari, but they remain historically important because of the man who cocreated them: Ed Smith, one of the first African-American electronics engineers in the video game industry. During a time when black Americans struggled for social justice, Manhattan-based APF hired Smith to design the core element of its future electronics business.<\/p>\n<p>What it took to get there, for both APF and Smith, is a story worth recounting\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand one that, until now, has never been told in full.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just today, FastCompany published my in-depth history of Ed Smith and APF Electronics. APF was responsible for several video game consoles in the 1970s (like the MP1000) and a personal computer called The Imagination Machine. Ed Smith was the primary electronics designer for the MP1000, and he has quite a story to tell. I think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,7,13,9,10],"tags":[1444,1133,370,1443,979,88,788,1132],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-games","category-computer-info-and-history","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-retrogaming","category-computers","tag-apf-electronics","tag-apf-m1000","tag-black-history","tag-ed-smith","tag-fastcompany","tag-freelance-work","tag-harry-mccracken","tag-imagination-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}