a machine with a keyboard on the left and cassette player on the right. The first motherboard arrived 45 days after the project started, and the first cases and power supplies about 15 days after that. By this point it was clear the system was a usable microcomputer on its own, but "the decision was made to soft-pedal the fact until the last possible moment. Once published, all the fuss possible was to be made about its general-purpose nature; but until it actually saw print, it was to be treated first as a terminal." As the machine increasingly expanded in power, Felsenstein suggested the name "Sol", because they were including "the wisdom of Solomon" in the system. Les Solomon would later quip that "if it worked, they'll say Sol means 'sun' in Spanish. If it don't work, they're gonna blame it on the Jewish guys." Stan Veit later joked to Solomon that they named it after him in another way, "the LES Intelligent Terminal". Release In February 1976, the first machine, a kludged-up box of parts, was readied and flown to New York to show Solomon. As he pointed out the features, Solomon asked what was stopping anyone from putting a BASIC on the personality ROM. Felsenstein, who had been told to avoid referring to it as a computer, simply replied "beats me". When they powered it up the machine would not work, displaying unreadably fuzzy images. Marsh and Felsenstein then flew to Boston to visit the offices of the newly started Byte magazine. While there, Felsenstein had time to discover the problem was a tiny bit of broken wire that got stuck under a chip, shorting out two of the video lines. They returned to Solomon's house to demonstrate the working unit. Due to publication timelines, it did not appear in the magazine until the July 1976 issue, where it was described as "high-quality intelligent terminal". The cover image showed the mockup version; it was packaged in a slim case, not unlike the general shape of the TI-99. By the time the article appeared, the design had changed; the new design had a distinct "step" behind the keyboard that rose up over the expansion chassis and power supply at the back of the case. A bent piece of sheet steel formed most of the case, capped on the left and right by the wooden panels Marsh demanded. The new