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Lee Felsenstein grew up in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his two parents, his brother, Joe, and his cousin. -
In his youth, Felsenstein participated in marches on Washington and picketed Woolworth’s in an early civil rights demonstration. -
Went to UC Berkeley to study Electrical Engineering. When failing to qualify for a scholarship, got a work-study job at NASA's Flight Research Center, who kicked him out later due to his parent's communist affiliation. -
Returning to Berkeley, he found the community alive with the Free Speech Movement. Felsenstein joined the movement, using his talent with technology to fuel the revolt. -
Felsenstein dropped out of Berkeley, alternating between electronics and work in the movement. A year later, he joined the underground Berkeley Barb as the newspaper's "military editor". -
Felsenstein was employed to hack the XDS-940 computer. It belonged to a group called Resource One, part of the Project One umbrella of Bay Area groups fostering community activism and humanistic programs. He split off eventually due to the deep-rooted bureaucratic nature of the company. -
A modem that could send and receive digital signals at three hundred bits per second, designed by Felsenstein for the hobbyist crowd. Produced years later, but still sold for $109, a fraction of the cost of other modems. -
With Jude Milhom and Efrem Lipkin, set up a terminal at Leopold’s Records in Berkeley, with a goal to use the computer as a public electronic bulletin board. Disbanded a year later. -
Staying in Berkeley and moving in with Bob Marsh, Felsenstein worked on his Tom Swift Terminal, as a way to recreate ideas of Community Memory. -
Attended potluck dinners at People's Computer Company alongside Gordon French, Fred Moore and Bob Albrecht. After the dinners petered out, started the Homebrew Computer Club with the former two as the Altair 8800 was revealed. -
Felsenstein took over moderation of Homebrew Computer Club from French, redesigning the meetings to better flow with the hacker spirit. Used his experience from Community Memory and as a political computerist to the club's advantage. -
After creating countless documentation and schematics for Marsh's Processor Technology company, Felsenstein was commissioned to create the Video Display Module for his Tom Swift Terminal. It featured a black and white alphanumeric display. -
Put together Lee's VDM and Marsh's boards at the suggestion of Les Solomon, creating the Sol-20 PC. It got thirty to forty thousand requests for schematics from Solomon's magazine, and was displayed publicly at PC '76 in Atlantic City. -
After running into Adam Osborne at the annual Computer Faire, he worked with him to design an "adequate" computer, and despite much criticism of the design, Felsenstein found himself worth over $20 million. -
A "hacker space" in Mountain View, California; established to put the next generation of hackers on the true path.