H. Edward Roberts | Generated by AI
Henry Edward Roberts (1941-2010) was an American engineer and entrepreneur widely regarded as the “father of the personal computer.” He is best known as the creator of the MITS Altair 8800, the machine that ignited the personal computer revolution in the mid-1970s.
Roberts founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in 1970. Initially, MITS produced electronics kits for model rockets, but Roberts later shifted the company’s focus to calculators. As the calculator market became increasingly competitive, Roberts embarked on a new venture: designing a small, affordable computer kit for hobbyists.
This effort culminated in the Altair 8800, featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine in January 1975. Based on the Intel 8080 microprocessor, the Altair 8800 was not a sophisticated machine by today’s standards, initially lacking a keyboard, monitor, or significant memory. However, its accessible price and kit format captured the imagination of electronics enthusiasts and hobbyists, generating an unexpected surge of orders.
The Altair 8800’s success created the first significant market for personal computers and attracted the attention of burgeoning software developers. Notably, the Altair 8800 was the platform for which Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed their first product, Altair BASIC, the foundational product for what would become Microsoft.
Although MITS was later sold, Roberts’s pioneering work with the Altair 8800 established the viability of the personal computer and laid the groundwork for an entirely new industry. His vision and technical ingenuity were instrumental in bringing computing power out of specialized laboratories and into the hands of individuals, fundamentally changing the technological landscape. After his career in computing, Roberts went on to pursue a medical degree and became a small-town doctor.