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Enter the Altair! |
"Project Breakthrough!"... A minicomputer kit you can build for under $400 - that was a
breakthrough indeed for the eager electronics hobbyists of the mid-70's. This announcement was to launch the Home
Computer era, which was a precursor and catalyst of the Personal Computer revolution of the 1980's. The computer itself, produced by the tiny MITS company in Albuquerque, was hardly a rival for anything; as sold, it was almost useless. This did not deter the hobbyists -- they simply set out to improve on it. Two of them, William Gates and Paul Allen, actually developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and sold it through their new start-up, which they called Microsoft. |
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