May 5 1966: (Steven B Gray founded Amateur Computer Society)
1966: book "We Built Our Own Computer" by A B Bolt
(not much for 1967 - some CQ magazine kits that were never built)
April 1968: ECHO IV (Jim Sutherland; 8K, 18 instructions, 160 kHz)
(no highlights for 1969/1970 - but CTC/Datapoint was active around this time on their 3300)
1971: 1000 Minutemen I missile guidance processors became available in surplus
1971: first "computer kit" (Louis E Frenzel, 15 instructions)
1971: Kenback-1 (65 instructions, audio cassette storage)
1972: Don Tarbell - editor program and assembler program
early 1972: opening of "several used computer equipment stores"
1972: 8008, TTL price drops, 1101 programmable memory (and the 1702)
1972: Roger Amidon's 4-bit "Spider" (TTL, RTTY, featured in BYTE April 1977)
Sept. 1972: Hal Chamberline, HAL-4096 (surplus IBM 1620 core, 16-bit system)
Sept. 1972: Electronic Design article, 1024 ASCII chars on a TV set
May 1973: EPD System One kit
Sept. 1973: Don Lancaster TVT-1
Late 1973: Scelbi-8H ($2760 for 16KB, cassette IO, ASCII keyboard, o-scope output), defunct Dec. 1974
1973: PDP-8A under $900
July 1974: Radio Electronics Jonathan Titus, Mark-8 (est. 500 units built)
Oct. 1974: SwTPC TVT-II kit and ASCII keyboard ($220 total)
April 1975: first deliveries of Altair 8800 (kit had no IO, 10k sold by end of year per MITS)
April 1975: first computer-club meeting (Bob Reiling, Gordon French)
Fall 1975: MITS 4K/8K BASIC interpreters
Fall 1975: SwTPC 6800-based microcomputer
(end of first decade of "amateur computing")
Other notes:
1969: Busicom/Intel contract for printer-calculator ($200 4004)
1971: Datapoint/Intel relationship ($200 8008, interrupt capability), Intel introduces 1101 and 1702
1972: National Semiconductor introduces IMP-16 ("user definable instruction set")
1973: Intel 8080 ("still required an external clock and multiple power supplies", vs 6800 required one TTL power supply)
1975-1976: "3rd gen microprocessors" Z-80, enhanced 8080 (on chip clock), 6502, TMS9900/TMS9980 (16-bit)
1977: "4th gen microprocessors" (actual "microcomputers in a single IC" -- microprocessor, ROM, programmable memory, IO on one chip)