Accidentally discovered the world's first computer after more than 50 years

Two of the three surviving Q1 microcomputers were found by chance after they were last used by an oil drilling company in the early 1970s.

Employees of British house cleaning company Just Clear found the two Q1s buried in multiple boxes while cleaning a property, Just Clear founder Brendan O'Shea said.

These two Q1 computers are considered by many to be the world's first single-chip PCs.

O'Shea added that the two computers were last used by an oil drilling company in the 1970s and their location is believed to be somewhere in Scandinavia.

At first, employees of the Just Clear company did not know that they had found this valuable artifact. O'Shea then consulted an expert and learned that these devices were the world's first fully integrated desktop computers powered by a single-chip processor.

The Q1, manufactured by the American Q1 Corporation in 1972 , was an industrial computer with an orange and black design, plasma display, and considered a forerunner of the modern desktop computer. It marked an important milestone in the development of computers.

Pre-Q1 computers were equipped with multi-chip processors - but this machine was the first to be designed and powered by a single chip, the Intel 8008.

Paul Neve, professor of computing at Kingston University in the UK, said: 'There would be no PCs, no Macs, no Apple or Android phones if it weren't for Q1 Corporation, pioneers in the 1970s and The 1980s laid the foundation for modern computers, which are ubiquitous in everyday life today."

The pair of computers were temporarily displayed in an exhibition at Kingston University alongside several other devices that played important roles in the history of computing, including the ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro . The two Q1 computers could now be auctioned if a museum or collector doesn't buy them.