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The Pentax ME-F was the first mass-produced autofocus 35mm SLR—as long as you had a lens with a motor and batteries, such as the SMC AF f2.8 35-70mm Zoom, as shown in the picture. Electronics in the camera figured out when you were in focus and provided in-focus indication with any lens. With an AF lens, the camera told the lens to focus, although the lens itself had to do the actual work with its own motor.

The ME-F was based on the 1979 ME Super. Both bodies are a bit bigger than the ME.

The 1977 Konica C35 AF was the first mass-produced autofocus camera, and the 1978 Polaroid SX-70 Sonar was the first mass-produced autofocus SLR, so the ME-F gets some qualifiers: first mass-produced autofocus 35mm SLR. The first autofocus camera with an in-body motor, which is the modern way to do it, was the Minolta Maxxum 7000 which, unlike the Pentax ME-F, was a huge hit. Ironically, in recent years top-of-the-line lenses now do have motors, although they take their power from the camera.

The ME-F took 8 batteries, four in the camera to power the electronics, including the autofocus sensing, and four in the lens to drive its motor.

ME-F users report that autofocus was slow and that the AF lenses were heavy. I'm unable to check this out for myself, as my ME-F has a stuck mirror and inoperable shutter. It wasn't listed that way on eBay, but, amazingly, the seller refunded my money and told me to keep the camera anyway. I sent him $25, which was what I figured a broken ME-F was worth. It turns out the zoom operates fine on my ME, although it doesn't autofocus, of course. I'm not planning on getting my ME-F fixed.

I usually don't reference Wikipedia articles because you never know who might change them and how, but last time I looked the Pentax ME-F article there was excellent and well-worth reading.

My take on the ME-F is that is was a bold move by Pentax, but a failure because it unbalanced things the wrong way; a small body and big, heavy, motorized lens weren't the right combination. Look at the picture at the top—it's just wrong. As the Maxxum 7000 showed, bodies were going to get big and heavy, and lenses were going to stay simple. (Now even the aperture ring is disappearing.) For a photographer with lots of lenses, that makes much more sense.

Here's an ad from the April 1982 issue of Modern Photography:

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Here's a short article about the ME-F that appeared in the Nov. 1981 issue of Popular Photography:

And a much longer article from the Dec. 1981 issue of Modern Photography:

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There's another article on the Canon AL-1 page that compares the ME-F to the AL-1.