Roberts and his company Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems marketed a series of electronics kits in the early 1970s, including electronic calculators. In 1974 MITS launched the Altair 8800, a computer kit which started from $439 at a time when comparable machines cost thousands of dollars.
The machine featured on the front cover of the January 1975 edition of Popular Mechanics, an edition read by a man named Paul Allen who then showed it to his friend Bill Gates. The pair believed the cheap machine could spark a mass audience for computing which would make software a profitable outlet and offered to develop a programming language for the machine, known as Altair BASIC.
In 1977, Roberts sold MITS and began studying medicine before becoming a doctor in Georgia for the rest of his working life.
Gates and Allen said today that “Ed was truly a pioneer in the personal computer revolution, and didn’t always get the recognition he deserved. He was an intense man with a great sense of humor, and he always cared deeply about the people who worked for him, including us. Ed was willing to take a chance on us – two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace – and we have always been grateful to him. The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things.”
For today’s edition of “Deal of the Day,” here are some of the best deals…
Watch as Michael Sheen's performs Dylan Thomas' iconic poem, "Do not go gentle into that…
https://youtu.be/H75eQX006jA?si=rmiAVKzAqWRXFygK Watch as Johnny Cash sings "Nasty Dan" to Oscar the Grouch in this adorable…