Honeywell's Kitchen Computer remembered

The $62,550 machine no one bought

By Austin Modine • Get more from this author

Posted in Odds and Sods, 27th November 2008 04:52 GMT

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Crumbs on the Keyboard

A cook wishing for the Kitchen Computer under his tree in 1969 would have to shell out $10,600 for the system. Factoring inflation, the price is equivalent to about $62,550 (£ 40,764) today. That's probably why there's no record of anyone ever buying a Kitchen Computer.

Alas, the Kitchen Computer's utter lack of popularity meant humankind would need to store its recipes in old fashion books and cue cards like a bunch of chumps until many years later. Vendors, however, have been tried fruitlessly to fit computers into the kitchen ever since with laughable and impractical results.

But as the crumbs in your keyboard are testament, food and home computing are simply meant to go together. Until that day arrives, we can only look back at Kitchen Computer and yearn for what could have been.

As usual, we give our attribution and thanks to the Computer History Museum for letting us poke around the collection. ®