Truly Trivial: Which famous computer was Douglas Adams the first Briton to own?

Image by markbult via Flickr

Today we come to honor the legacy of one of the late twentieth century's true Renaissance men. He was a multitalented author, playwright, musician and scholar. He contributed to some of the most beloved and well recognized media works of our time, and his wit and humor have been celebrated by -- and have greatly influenced -- some of the foremost thinkers of the age. We speak, of course, of Douglas Adams, and while geeks need little prompting to speak of him, we are moved to again revisit this icon of the nerd underverse on the occasion of his most famous franchise's final chapter.

And Another Thing..., the last novel in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, goes on sale this week. It's also the first, last, and only Hitchhiker's Guide novel that isn't authored by Adams himself. Eoin Colfer, the originator of the Artemis Fowl series (which might be described as Harry Potter by way of Dirk Gently), was bestowed the honor and the challenge of completing the Hitchhiker's Guide story by Adams' wife and daughter.

There are those who are rightfully leery of anyone besides Adams attempting to continue the Hitchhiker's Guide universe. After all, Adams' creation spanned the media landscape, finding its way into novels, radio, television, movies, and video games. Moreover, the Hitchhikers Guide series has influenced everything from basic text editors to chess supercomputers to Google's built-in calculator.

Yet for all that the Hitchhikers Guide has meant to us, Douglas Adams himself meant more. He wasn't just the creator of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox. Adams occasionally jammed with Pink Floyd and picked the title for the group's final album, The Division Bell. Adams was one of only two non-Pythonites to write for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Oh, and he wrote a couple of Doctor Who serials, where he met Lalla Ward -- who played Romana -- and eventually introduced her to her present husband, noted zoologist and religious critic Richard Dawkins.

To say Adams was a man of many talents is an absurdly extreme understatement. And we haven't even begun to discuss his charity work or his technology advocacy. In fact, buried within the mountain of Adams-related trivia is the fact that he was an early adopter of one of the most well known consumer computers ever released. In fact, he was the first Englishman to own one.

Which famous computer was Douglas Adams the first Briton to own?