query: the altair is considered the first successful personal computer . who developed it

pos: Ed Roberts (computer engineer) A brutal calculator price war left the company deeply in debt by 1974. Roberts then developed the Altair 8800 personal computer that used the new Intel 8080 microprocessor. This was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics", and hobbyists flooded MITS with orders for this $397 computer kit. Bill Gates and Paul Allen joined MITS to develop software and Altair BASIC was Microsoft's first product. Roberts sold MITS in 1977 and retired to Georgia where he farmed, studied medicine and eventually became a small-town doctor living in Cochran, Georgia. Roberts was born on September 13,

pos: Personal computer storage. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific uses. The introduction of the microprocessor, a single chip with all the circuitry that formerly occupied large cabinets, led to the proliferation of personal computers after 1975. 1974 saw the introduction of what is considered by many to be the first true "personal computer", the Altair 8800 created by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). Based on the 8-bit Intel 8080 Microprocessor, the Altair is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer. The computer bus designed for the

pos: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems calculator price war left the company deeply in debt by 1974. Roberts then developed the first commercially successful microcomputer, the Altair 8800, which was featured on the January 1975 cover of "Popular Electronics". Hobbyists flooded MITS with orders for the $397 computer kit. Paul Allen and Bill Gates saw the magazine and began writing software for the Altair, later called Altair BASIC. They moved to Albuquerque to work for MITS and in July 1975 started Microsoft. MITS's annual sales had reached $6 million by 1977 when they were acquired by Pertec Computer. The operations were soon merged into the larger

pos: Radio News the editorial staff during this time induced many of their authors to start writing for their competitor, "Radio-Electronics". In September 1973 "Radio Electronics" published Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter, a low cost video display. In July 1974 "Radio Electronics" published the Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer based on the Intel 8008 processor. The editors of "Popular Electronics" needed a computer project so they selected Ed Robert's Altair 8800 computer based on the improved Intel 8080 processor. The January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" had the Altair computer on the cover and this launched the home computer revolution. Radio News Radio News was an

pos: Altair 8800 Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue (published in late November 1974) of "Popular Electronics", and was sold by mail order through advertisements there, in "Radio-Electronics", and in other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were surprised when they sold thousands in the first month. The Altair also appealed to individuals and businesses that just wanted a computer and purchased the assembled version.

pos: Open Letter to Hobbyists gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital without paying them. In December 1974 Bill Gates was a student at Harvard University and Paul Allen worked for Honeywell in Boston when they saw the Altair 8800 computer in the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics". They had written BASIC language programs since their days at Lakeside School in Seattle and knew the Altair computer was powerful enough to support a BASIC interpreter. They wanted to be the first to offer BASIC for the Altair computer and the software development tools they had previously created for their Intel 8008

pos: Popular Electronics the new "Popular Electronics" digested the merger. The upcoming personal computer benefited from this competition between "Radio-Electronics" and "Popular Electronics". In September 1973 "Radio-Electronics" published Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter, a low cost video display. In July 1974 "Radio-Electronics" published the Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer based on the Intel 8008 processor. The publishers noted the success of "Radio-Electronics" and Arthur P. Salsberg took over as Editor in 1974. Salsberg and Technical Editor, Leslie Solomon, brought back the featured construction projects. "Popular Electronics" needed a computer project so they selected Ed Robert's Altair 8800 computer based on the improved Intel 8080 processor. The

pos: Ed Roberts (computer engineer) "It's a stellar event, so let's name it after a star." McVeigh suggested "Altair", the twelfth-brightest star in the sky. When the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" reached readers in mid-December 1974, MITS was flooded with orders. They had to hire extra people just to answer the phones. In February, MITS received 1,000 orders for the Altair 8800. The quoted delivery time was 60 days, but it was many more months before the machines were shipped. By August 1975, they had shipped over 5,000 computers. The Altair 8800 computer was a break-even sale for MITS. They needed to sell

pos: Radio-Electronics last affront to the feminist movement, the June 1974 cover of "Radio-Electronics" has a young lady in a bikini by a swimming pool with that month's feature project, a guitar amplifier. Around 1971, many authors who used to contribute to "Popular Electronics" started writing for "Radio-Electronics". There was some competition in digital logic projects between "Radio-Electronics" and "Popular Electronics". In September 1973, "Radio-Electronics" published Don Lancaster's "TV Typewriter" and in July 1974 it published Jon Titus's "Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer". However, "Popular Electronics" published the most famous project in January 1975 with the MITS Altair 8800 computer. After "Popular Electronics" went

pos: Popular Electronics second line was used for two years. The large photo of the feature project was gone, replaced by a textual list of articles. In August 1974 the magazine switched to a larger letter size format (). This was done to allow larger illustrations such as schematics, to switch printing to offset presses, and respond to advertisers desire for larger ad pages. The longtime tag line, "World's Largest Selling Electronics Magazine", was moved from the Table of Contents page to the cover. There is debate about what machine was the first personal computer, the Altair 8800 (1975), the Mark-8 (1974), or

neg: David Bunnell David Bunnell David Hugh Bunnell (July 25, 1947 – October 18, 2016) was a pioneer of the personal computing industry who founded some of the most successful computer magazines including "PC Magazine", "PC World", and "Macworld". In 1975, he was working at MITS in Albuquerque, N.M., when the company made the first personal computer, the Altair 8800. His coworkers included Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who created the first programming language for the Altair, Altair BASIC. David Bunnell grew up in the small town of Alliance, Nebraska, the son of Hugh Bunnell and Elois (Goodwin) Bunnell. He had

neg: History of computing hardware (1960s–present) first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080 processor. It was a commercial success with 10,000 Altairs being shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Paul Allen and his high school friend Bill Gates who developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and then formed Microsoft. The MITS Altair 8800 effectively created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Intel 8085 microprocessor chips. Most

neg: Altair 8800 The Altair is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer. The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a "de facto" standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC. While serving at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, Ed Roberts and Forrest M. Mims III decided to use their electronics background to produce small kits for model rocket hobbyists. In 1969, Roberts and Mims, along with Stan Cagle and Robert

neg: David Bunnell magazine, which covers the boomer market, was named Best New Consumer Magazine by "Folio Magazine" in 2008. He died on October 18, 2016 at the age of 69 in Berkeley, California. David Bunnell David Hugh Bunnell (July 25, 1947 – October 18, 2016) was a pioneer of the personal computing industry who founded some of the most successful computer magazines including "PC Magazine", "PC World", and "Macworld". In 1975, he was working at MITS in Albuquerque, N.M., when the company made the first personal computer, the Altair 8800. His coworkers included Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who created

neg: Computer Lib/Dream Machines In Steven Levy's book , "Computer Lib" is described as "the epic of the computer revolution, the bible of the hacker dream. [Nelson] was stubborn enough to publish it when no one else seemed to think it was a good idea." Published just before the release of the Altair 8800 kit, "Computer Lib" is often considered the first book about the personal computer. Nelson writes passionately about the need for people to understand computers deeply, more deeply than was generally promoted as computer literacy, which he considers a superficial kind of familiarity with particular hardware and software. His rallying cry

neg: How William Shatner Changed the World personal computer, and how Trek fan Ed Roberts, invented the first home computer, the Altair 8800, named after the solar system Altair (Altair 6) in the "Star Trek" episode "Amok Time". This led to Bill Gates writing the computer programming language BASIC for the Altair and forming Microsoft. Medical technologies are discussed, in particular the inspiration for non-invasive Star-Trek-style imaging technology. Warp drive and faster-than-light interstellar travel with theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre's theories are mentioned. Lawrence M. Krauss, physicist and author of "The Physics of Star Trek", is also featured. The show then investigates the research work of Kevin Warwick

neg: Popular Electronics computer terminal and a modem a user could dial into a large multi-user computer. Lee Felsenstein wanted make low-cost versions of modems and terminals available to the hobbyist. The March 1976 issue had the "Pennywhistle Modem" and the July 1976 issue had the "SOL Intelligent Terminal". The SOL, built by Processor Technology, was really an Altair compatible computer and became one of the most successful personal computers at that time. "Popular Electronics" had many other computer projects such as the Altair 680, the Speechlab voice recognition board and the COSMAC ELF. They did not have the field to themselves. A

neg: Educational software to schools the materials developed through the IBM partnership. Early terminals that ran educational systems cost over $10,000, putting them out of reach of most institutions. Some programming languages from this period, p3), and LOGO (1967) can also be considered educational, as they were specifically targeted to students and novice computer users. The PLATO IV system, released in 1972, supported many features which later became standard in educational software running on home computers. Its features included bitmap graphics, primitive sound generation, and support for non-keyboard input devices, including the touchscreen. The arrival of the personal computer, with the Altair 8800

neg: André Truong Trong Thi in 1971. In 1973, thanks to François Gernelle and a team of engineers, his company created the Micral, the first non-kit, microprocessor based personal computer in the world. It was created two years before the MITS Altair of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems arrived on the market. In 1981, R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull. The Micral computers were turned into a line of PC-compatibles in 1983. André Truong Trong Thi resigned from Bull, and joined the company Normerel formed by J. R. Tissot, a former member of R2E management. He developed the "Oplite" personal computer for Normerel. Normerel was

neg: Motorola 6800 mainframes. In 1999 Motorola spun off their analog IC, digital IC and transistor business as ON Semiconductor based in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2004 they spun off their microprocessor business as Freescale Semiconductor based in Austin, Texas. The MITS Altair 8800, the first successful personal computer, used the Intel 8080 microprocessor and was featured on the January 1975 cover of "Popular Electronics". The first personal computers using the Motorola 6800 were introduced in late 1975. Sphere Corporation of Bountiful, Utah ran a quarter-page advertisement in the July 1975 issue of "Radio-Electronics" for a computer kit with a 6800 microprocessor, of RAM,

neg: Core International his business and personal computer development experiences. This was the period during the creation of the first microcomputers, the launch of the Altair 8800 and founding of Microsoft. He was selling and programming Minicomputers and assembling these microcomputers, attaching computer peripherals, programming and building them into business computer systems. Core was created under a different business model. Initially, it was marketed as an association and structured as a for-profit organization specifically for users of the IBM 5100 Series and IBM System/23. The objective was to sell by mail-order computer supplies, pre-developed (off-the-shelf) programs and hardware maintenance service. Supplies included printer

neg: Experimenter Publishing featured the Altair 8800 computer on the cover; this launched the personal computer revolution. Hugo Gernsback's "Amazing Stories" is regarded as the first dedicated science fiction magazine and every year World Science Fiction Society gives the Hugo Awards for the best science fiction and fantasy works. Hugo Gernsback was born in Luxembourg in 1884 and he became fascinated with electricity as a boy. While studying electrical engineering at a Technikum University in Bingen, Germany; he built a simple radio transmitter and receiver. Gernsback also developed a powerful dry-cell battery but was unable to patent it in Europe. In February 1904

neg: Model Rocketry (magazine) press release announcing the formation of MITS was published in the December 1969 issue of "Model Rocketry". In January 1975 MITS introduced the Altair 8800 computer and the personal computer revolution was launched. Bill Gates and Paul Allen moved to Albuquerque in 1975 to write Altair BASIC and soon started Microsoft. Several copies of "Model Rocketry" magazine and the prototype tracking light are on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in their "STARTUP: Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution" exhibit. Mr. Mims donated his MITS 816 calculator, Altair 8800 computer, early MITS documents and unsold

neg: Cromemco Camera in his book, "Idea Man: a memoir by the cofounder of Microsoft", noting that "The Altair even debuted a digital camera back in 1976." In 2011 Mona Simpson revealed, in a eulogy for her brother Steve Jobs, that she had considered buying a Cromemco as her first computer. In 2013 the Cromemco System Three Computer appeared prominently in Andrew Bujalski's film "Computer Chess". In 2013 Deborah Perry Piscione in her "New York Times" best-selling book, "Secrets of Silicon Valley", identified Cromemco, along with Apple Inc., as the two Silicon Valley companies that created the personal computer industry. Cromemco Cromemco

neg: History of personal computers is generally considered to be the Altair 8800, from MITS, a small company that produced electronics kits for hobbyists. The Altair was introduced in a "Popular Electronics" magazine article in the January 1975 issue. In keeping with MITS's earlier projects, the Altair was sold in kit form, although a relatively complex one consisting of four circuit boards and many parts. Priced at only $400, the Altair tapped into pent-up demand and surprised its creators when it generated thousands of orders in the first month. Unable to keep up with demand, MITS sold the design after about 10,000 kits had shipped.

neg: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and being unable to fulfill the orders in time. Although it was not yet a computer for the general public, the Altair brought that dream a lot closer. 11. Tiny BASIC: Altair BASIC was an interpreter that translated instructions from the BASIC programming language into assembly instructions that the Altair 8800 could understand. It was developed by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the founders of Micro-soft, specifically for the Altair 8800 and it would fit in 4K of memory. Unlike previous hackers and against the Hacker Ethic, Micro-Soft and MITS felt that people should pay for BASIC just like they

neg: Altair (spacecraft) Lunar Surface Access Module was retitled "Altair", after the 12th brightest star in the northern hemisphere's night sky, Altair in the constellation Aquila. In Latin, means "eagle", providing a connection to the first crewed lunar landing, Apollo 11's "Eagle"; the name "Altair" itself is a latinization of the Arabic , meaning "the eagle," "the bird," or "the flyer." Prior to the announcement of the "Altair" name, reports had suggested other names had been considered by NASA, but Altair won in a vote by the design team over Pegasus. NASA developed only conceptual designs for Altair. No Altair spacecraft were built—plans

neg: Nexon Computer Museum also includes the original Altair 8800, Commodore PET, IBM Personal Computer and classic Korean computers such as Zemix V, SPC-1500A, IQ-1000, FC-100D etc. that were developed and/or distributed by Samsung, Daewoo, and Goldstar (now LG). The museum also provides several gaming software available for visitors to play, such as Space Invaders, Galaga, Prince of Persia (1989 video game), Hanme-Type Writing Teacher and various others. It also offers various education programs to local communities. The museum also aims to research and archive MMO games, which is one of the strongest video game genres in South Korea. In 2014, Nexon Computer Museum

neg: Microcomputer engineering development and hobbyist personal use. In 1975, the Processor Technology SOL-20 was designed, which consisted of one board which included all the parts of the computer system. The SOL-20 had built-in EPROM software which eliminated the need for rows of switches and lights. The MITS Altair just mentioned played an instrumental role in sparking significant hobbyist interest, which itself eventually led to the founding and success of many well-known personal computer hardware and software companies, such as Microsoft and Apple Computer. Although the Altair itself was only a mild commercial success, it helped spark a huge industry. By 1977,

neg: Tarbell Cassette Interface subsystem. The latter includes a Tarbell floppy disk interface, said to plug into any S-100 bus computer, introduced in 1979. Tarbell Cassette Interface The Tarbell Cassette Interface is an expansion card for use with the Altair 8800 early personal computer, or other systems using the Altair's S-100 bus. It was designed by Don Tarbell and sold by Tarbell Electronics as early as 1976. At the time, it was considered to be fast, reliable, and popular. While supporting the 1975 Kansas City (Byte/Lancaster) standard, it also introduced a much faster Tarbell standard which became a "de facto" standard for compact cassette

neg: S-100 bus by Mark Garetz, continued to develop the specification which was proposed as an IEEE Standard and approved by the IEEE Computer Society on June 10, 1982. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the IEEE standard on September 8, 1983. The computer bus structure developed by Ed Roberts for the Altair 8800 computer had been extended, rigorously documented, and now designated as the American National Standard IEEE Std 696-1983. IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer in 1981 and followed it with increasingly capable models: the XT in 1983 and the AT in 1984. The success of these computers cut deeply

neg: Personal computer Altair was to become a "de facto" standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold the Apple I computer circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The Apple I computer differed from the other kit-style hobby computers of era. At the request of Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop, Jobs and Wozniak were given their first purchase order, for 50 Apple I computers, only if the computers were assembled and tested and not

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems notable seminar was at Rickey's Hyatt House in Palo Alto, California in early June 1975, where a member of the Homebrew Computer Club left with an unreleased copy of Altair BASIC. After retail computer stores were established in most cities, the "MITS-MOBILE" was retired. The first (and only) World Altair Computer Convention was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1976. The convention, organized by David Bunnell, was an overwhelming success; with 700 people from 46 states and seven countries attending. Many of the attendees would go on to become leaders of the personal computer revolution. Owners of mainframe systems

neg: Sage 50 Accounting to be separately developed and supported. Peachtree Accounting was originally sold by a software publisher founded in 1978 by Ben Dyer, Ron Roberts, Steve Mann, and John Hayes. The company was carved out of The Computer SystemCenter, an early Altair dealer founded by Roberts, Mann, Jim Dunion, and Rich Stafford, which Dyer had joined as the manager and where the first software was published in 1977. The company expanded its offerings with its acquisition of Layered, an accounting program designed for use on the Macintosh. The company's products were included in the initial launch of the IBM Personal Computer, and

neg: Open Letter to Hobbyists member, Robert Marsh, designed a 4K static memory that was plug-in compatible with the Altair 8800 and sold for $255. His company was Processor Technology, one of the most successful Altair compatible board suppliers. Many Altair 8800 computer owners skipped the bundled package; purchased their memory boards from a third party supplier and used a "borrowed" copy of Altair BASIC. Ed Roberts acknowledged the 4K Dynamic RAM board problems in the October 1975 "Computer Notes". The price was reduced from $264 to $195 and existing purchasers got a $50 rebate. The full price for 8K Altair BASIC was reduced to

neg: Altair 8800 used in typical systems. The IMSAI advantage was short lived because MITS had recognized these shortcomings and developed the Altair 8800B which was introduced in June 1976. In 1977, Pertec Computer Corporation purchased MITS and began to market the computer, without changes (except for branding), as the PCC 8800 in 1978. In the first design of the Altair, the parts needed to make a complete machine would not fit on a single motherboard, and the machine consisted of four boards stacked on top of each other with stand-offs. Another problem facing Roberts was that the parts needed to make a

neg: Ed Roberts (computer engineer) finished Altair computer had a completely different circuit board layout than the prototype shown in the magazine. MITS products typically had generic names such as the or the . The editors of "Popular Electronics" wanted a more alluring name for the computer. MITS technical writer David Bunnell came up with three pages of possible names, but Roberts was too busy finishing the computer design to choose one. There are several versions of the story of who selected Altair as the computer name. At the first Altair Computer Convention (March 1976), Les Solomon told the audience that the name was inspired

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems newsletter; 11.25 by 15.5 inches (286 by 394 mm), and each issue had 8 to 24 pages. In January 1977, it switched to a smaller magazine format and the last issue was produced in January 1978. Bunnell started "Personal Computer" magazine in October 1976 and went on to a successful career as a magazine publisher. "Computer Notes" featured a wide variety of authors. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were regular contributors to the early issues. They wrote about Altair Basic and general software topics. Ed Roberts wrote a monthly "Letter from the President" column where he would answer customer questions

neg: Cromemco Bytesaver Cromemco Bytesaver The Bytesaver, introduced by Cromemco in 1976, was the first programmable memory board for the MITS Altair and S-100 bus microcomputer systems. The Bytesaver had sockets for 8 UV-erasable EPROMs providing up to 8 Kbytes of storage. The EPROMs could be programmed by the Bytesaver, or read as computer memory. In the history of microcomputer systems, the Bytesaver was the first viable alternative to the use of punched paper tape for storing programs, and has been called “a great advance in microcomputer technology”. The MITS Altair microcomputer, which began the personal computer revolution, was introduced in January 1975

neg: ARM architecture each of these to include or exclude optional capabilities. The British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers first developed the Acorn RISC Machine architecture (ARM) in the 1980s to use in its personal computers. Its first ARM-based products were coprocessor modules for the BBC Micro series of computers. After the successful BBC Micro computer, Acorn Computers considered how to move on from the relatively simple MOS Technology 6502 processor to address business markets like the one that was soon dominated by the IBM PC, launched in 1981. The "Acorn Business Computer" (ABC) plan required that a number of second processors be made

neg: Altair 8800 MITS product had a generic name like the "" or the "". Ed Roberts was busy finishing the design and left the naming of the computer to the editors of "Popular Electronics". One explanation of the Altair name, which editor Les Solomon later told the audience at the first Altair Computer Convention (March 1976), is that the name was inspired by Les's 12-year-old daughter, Lauren. "She said why don't you call it Altair - that's where the Enterprise is going tonight." The "Star Trek" episode is probably "Amok Time", as this is the only one from "The Original Series" which

neg: Tarbell Cassette Interface Tarbell Cassette Interface The Tarbell Cassette Interface is an expansion card for use with the Altair 8800 early personal computer, or other systems using the Altair's S-100 bus. It was designed by Don Tarbell and sold by Tarbell Electronics as early as 1976. At the time, it was considered to be fast, reliable, and popular. While supporting the 1975 Kansas City (Byte/Lancaster) standard, it also introduced a much faster Tarbell standard which became a "de facto" standard for compact cassette data storage. Tarbell also sold other products, including TARBELL CASSETTE BASIC in 1978 and a Shugart Associates-compatible dual disk drive

neg: PC-6000 series was a subsidiary company of NEC and manufacturer of consumer electronics. In 1980, they started manufacturing the PC-8001 which was developed by the Electronic Devices division of NEC. It was successful and grew the personal computer market in Japan. They started developing a low-cost home computer, and it became the PC-6001. At the same time, the Electronic Devices division developed the PC-8801 for home and business, and the Information Systems division developed the PC-9801 for business. In 1983, NEC had four personal computer lines come out from different divisions. To avoid confliction, they decided to consolidate personal computer business into

neg: History of electrical engineering The first realization of the microprocessor was the Intel 4004, a 4-bit processor developed in 1971, but only in 1973 did the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, make the building of the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, possible. History of electrical engineering This article details the history of electrical engineering. Thales of Miletus, an ancient Greek philosopher, writing at around 600 BCE, described a form of static electricity, noting that rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber, would cause a particular attraction between the two. He noted that the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair

neg: Open Letter to Hobbyists toy. At the seminar, a paper tape containing a pre-release version of Altair BASIC disappeared. The tape was given to Steve Dompier who passed it on to Dan Sokol who had access to a high speed tape punch. At the next Homebrew Computer Club meeting, 50 copies of Altair BASIC on paper tape appeared in a cardboard box. MITS offered a complete Altair system with two MITS 4K Dynamic RAM boards, a serial interface board and Altair BASIC for $995. However the $264 MITS RAM boards were unreliable due to several component and design problems. An enterprising Homebrew Computer Club

neg: Processor Technology standard format, the first cross-system data transfer standard for microcomputers. Processor Technology Processor Technology Corporation was a personal computer company founded in April 1975 by Gary Ingram and Bob Marsh in Berkeley, California. Their first product was a 4K byte RAM board that was compatible with the MITS Altair 8800 computer but more reliable than the MITS board. This was followed by a series of memory and I/O boards including a video display module. Popular Electronics magazine wanted a feature article on an intelligent computer terminal and Technical Editor Les Solomon asked Marsh and Lee Felsenstein to design one. It

neg: Altair 8800 sold for $255. His company was Processor Technology, one of the most successful Altair compatible board suppliers. Their advertisement in the July 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" promised interface and PROM boards in addition to the 4K memory board. They would later develop a popular video display board that would plug directly into the Altair. A consulting company in San Leandro, California, IMS Associates Inc., wanted to purchase several Altair computers but the long delivery time convinced them that they should build their own computers. In the October 1975 "Popular Electronics", a small advertisement announced the IMSAI 8080 computer. The

neg: Altair 8800 ad noted that all boards were "plug compatible" with the Altair 8800. The computer cost $439 for a kit. The first 50 IMSAI computers shipped in December 1975. The IMSAI 8080 computer improved on the original Altair design in several areas. It was easier to assemble: The Altair required 60 wire connections between the front panel and the mother board (backplane.) The IMSAI motherboard had 18 slots. The MITS motherboard consisted of 4 slots segments that had to be connected together with 100 wires. The IMSAI also had a larger power supply to handle the increasing number of expansion boards

neg: History of computing hardware (1960s–present) to use, and truly personal computers. The Altair 8800, introduced in a "Popular Electronics" magazine article in the January 1975 issue, at the time set a new low price point for a computer, bringing computer ownership to an admittedly select market in the 1970s. This was followed by the IMSAI 8080 computer, with similar abilities and limitations. The Altair and IMSAI were essentially scaled-down minicomputers and were incomplete: to connect a keyboard or teleprinter to them required heavy, expensive "peripherals". These machines both featured a front panel with switches and lights, which communicated with the operator in binary. To program

neg: Processor Technology Processor Technology Processor Technology Corporation was a personal computer company founded in April 1975 by Gary Ingram and Bob Marsh in Berkeley, California. Their first product was a 4K byte RAM board that was compatible with the MITS Altair 8800 computer but more reliable than the MITS board. This was followed by a series of memory and I/O boards including a video display module. Popular Electronics magazine wanted a feature article on an intelligent computer terminal and Technical Editor Les Solomon asked Marsh and Lee Felsenstein to design one. It was featured on the July 1976 cover and became the

neg: The Computer Museum, Boston cards, mercury delay line, and fixed-head drum. In the following years noteworthy acquisitions ofcomputers included: Amdahl 470V/6, Apollo Domain DN100 workstation, Control Data Little Character, Data General Eclipse, Evans and Sutherland Line Drawing System 2, Osborne I, SCELBI 8H Mini-computer, and a Sinclair ZX-80. To the nascent historical software collection, the first BASIC written for the Altair and VisiCalc Beta Test Version 0.1 was added. Between Fall 1995 and Spring 1996, The Museum sponsored the Early Model Personal Computer Contest. A call for the earliest personal computers netted 137 additions to the collections. The judges, Steve Wozniak, David Bunnell, and

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems provided 16 lines of 64 upper and lower case characters on a black and white television. This $160 board became very popular and led to the Processor Technology Sol-20 Computer in 1976. The IMSAI 8080, the first "clone" of the Altair computer, was released in December 1975. It corrected many shortcomings of the original Altair 8800 by providing a larger power supply, a 22 slot motherboard, and easier wiring of the front panel. Ed Roberts reviewed the IMSAI in his April 1976 column in "Computer Notes", and agreed that the IMSAI was in some ways better than the original Altair.

neg: Ed Roberts (computer engineer) Ed Roberts (computer engineer) Henry Edward "Ed" Roberts (September 13, 1941 – April 1, 2010) was an American engineer, entrepreneur and medical doctor who invented the first commercially successful personal computer in 1975. He is most often known as "the father of the personal computer". He founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in 1970 to sell electronics kits to model rocketry hobbyists, but the first successful product was an electronic calculator kit that was featured on the cover of the November 1971 issue of "Popular Electronics". The calculators were very successful and sales topped one million dollars in 1973.

neg: Popular Electronics as it was called, was designed to use an oscilloscope for the image display, the article mentions that it could also be connected to the Altair computer. It soon was, the authors got one of the first Altair computers and designed an interface for the camera. They also designed a full color video display for the Altair, "The TV Dazzler", that appeared on the cover of the February 1976 issue. This was the start of Cromemco, a computer company that grew to over 500 employees by 1983. The internet did not exist in 1975 but time-sharing computers did. With a

neg: History of electronic engineering did the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, make the building of the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 8800, possible. The first PC was announced to the general public on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. Many electronics engineers today specialize in the development of programs for microprocessor based electronic systems, known as embedded systems. Hybrid specializations such as Computer Engineering have emerged due to the detailed knowledge of the hardware that is required for working on such systems. Software engineers typically do not study microprocessors at the same level as computer and electronics engineers. Engineers

neg: TK-80 2000 units per month, despite 200 units expected. Soon after its success, other Japanese microprocessor manufacturers developed an evaluation kit for their microprocessor. Power supplies and other peripherals came out from third parties. Watanabe and his members wrote an introductory book on July 1977, it became very popular and sold more than 200,000 copies. Also, some computer magazines were founded, the "ASCII", the "", the and the "". In Japan, the Altair 8800 was sold in 1975, but not successful due to its high brokerage fee. Neither the Apple II nor the Commodore PET. Single-board computers had been popular until

neg: History of computing hardware 8800. In April 1975 at the Hannover Fair, Olivetti presented the P6060, the world's first complete, pre-assembled personal computer system. The central processing unit consisted of two cards, code named PUCE1 and PUCE2, and unlike most other personal computers was built with TTL components rather than a microprocessor. It had one or two 8" floppy disk drives, a 32-character plasma display, 80-column graphical thermal printer, 48 Kbytes of RAM, and BASIC language. It weighed . As a complete system, this was a significant step from the Altair, though it never achieved the same success. It was in competition with a

neg: Roger Melen MITS Altair Computer that was also being readied for publication. Recognizing the potential of interfacing the Cyclops digital camera to the Altair, Melen changed his return flight to California to go through Albuquerque to visit Ed Roberts, president of MITS. Roberts was anxious to develop third-party support for the Altair, and encouraged Melen to interface the Cyclops digital camera to the Altair computer. Roberts agreed to ship an Altair computer to Melen so that he could get to work on the interface. The MITS Altair Computer appeared on the cover of "Popular Electronics" in January 1975, and the Cyclops digital

neg: Altair BASIC their previous venture Traf-O-Data that ran on a PDP-10 time-sharing computer. He adapted this emulator based on the Altair programmer guide, and they developed and tested the interpreter on Harvard's PDP-10. Harvard officials were not pleased when they found out, but there was no written policy that covered the use of this computer. Gates and Allen bought computer time from a timesharing service in Boston to complete their BASIC program debugging. They hired Harvard student Monte Davidoff to write floating-point arithmetic routines for the interpreter, a feature not available in many of its competitors. The finished interpreter, including its own

neg: VisiCalc VisiCalc VisiCalc (for "visible calculator") was the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool, prompting IBM to introduce the IBM PC two years later. VisiCalc is considered the Apple II's killer app. It sold over 700,000 copies in six years, and as many as 1 million copies over its history. Initially developed for the Apple II using a 6502 assembler running on the Multics time sharing system, VisiCalc was ported to

neg: BASIC articles by Allison in the first three quarterly issues of the "People's Computer Company" newsletter published in 1975 and implementations with source code published in "". Versions were written by Li-Chen Wang and Tom Pittman. In 1975 MITS released Altair BASIC, developed by Bill Gates and Paul Allen as the company Micro-Soft, which eventually grew into corporate giant Microsoft. The first Altair version was co-written by Gates, Allen, and Monte Davidoff. Almost universally, home computers of the 1980s had a ROM-resident BASIC interpreter, which the machines booted directly into. When the Apple II, PET 2001, and TRS-80 were all released

neg: Cromemco called the “Bytesaver.” The Bytesaver also could support a resident program that allowed the computer to function immediately when it was powered up, without having to first manually load a bootstrap program. The Bytesaver proved to be a very popular peripheral. There was also no way to see a Cyclops image stored in the Altair. So work began on a graphics interface card which could connect the Altair to a color TV set. This graphics interface, called the Dazzler, was introduced in the February 1976 issue of "Popular Electronics". One use for an Altair Computer with a Dazzler was to

neg: MIR (computer) monitor and light pen used for correcting texts and drawing on screen. It could be considered one of the first personal computers. Technical specifications for MIR-1: MIR (computer) The MIR series of early Soviet personal computers was developed from 1965 (MIR), 1968 (MIR-1) to 1969 (MIR-2) in a group headed by Victor Glushkov. MIR (МИР) stands for «Машина для Инженерных Расчётов» (Machine for Engineering Calculations) and means both "world" and "peace" in Russian. It was designed as a relatively small-scale computer for use in engineering and scientific applications. Among other innovations, it contained a hardware implementation of a high-level programming

neg: Open Letter to Hobbyists Open Letter to Hobbyists The Open Letter to Hobbyists was a 1976 open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant copyright infringement of software taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his company's software. In the letter, Gates expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's Altair BASIC software without having paid for it. He asserted that such widespread unauthorized copying in effect discourages developers from investing time and money in creating high-quality software. He cited the unfairness of

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems and minicomputers could purchase additional memory, interface boards and peripherals from third party suppliers; so it was predictable that owners of the Altair 8800 computer would do the same. MITS's delays in delivery of systems and accessories accelerated the formation of Altair compatible suppliers. The first ones started appearing in mid-1975 and by July 1976 complete computers systems were readily available. The technical manuals for the Altair 8800 provided electrical schematics of the 100 pin computer bus allowing others to design compatible boards. There was not a proper technical standard at the time and some "compatible" boards did not work

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Roberts also pointed out that the new Altair 8800B was superior to the IMSAI 8080 and the upgraded Altair 8800A fixed the same issues that the IMSAI did. Altair computers were only available from the 20 or so authorized Altair computer dealers, but the IMSAI 8080, Processor Technology Sol and many other clones were sold by hundreds of newly opening computer stores. The S-100 bus was used throughout the 1980s until it was overtaken by the IBM PC ISA bus. Seattle Computer Products (SCP) was a manufacturer of S-100 memory boards. The company's engineer, Tim Paterson, designed an Intel 8086

neg: Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation product of the Microsoft company. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first BASIC by Microsoft and the first high level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. During the home computer craze during the late-1970s and early-1980s, Microsoft BASIC was ported to and supplied with practically every computer design. Slight variations to add support for machine-specific functions led to a profusion of related designs like Commodore BASIC and Atari Microsoft BASIC. As the early home computers gave way to newer designs like the IBM PC and Apple

neg: Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems University and Paul Allen worked for Honeywell in Boston. They saw the Altair 8800 computer in the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" and knew it was powerful enough to support a BASIC interpreter. They wanted to be the first to offer BASIC for the Altair computer, and the software development tools they had previously created for their Intel 8008 microprocessor based Traf-O-Data computer would give them a head start. While their friend, Paul Gilbert, was building the computer, Allen wrote a program that ran on a DEC PDP-10 time-sharing computer that simulated the 8008 system. He also modified DEC's

neg: Homebrew Computer Club first personal computers, although the movie took the liberty of placing the meeting in Berkeley and misrepresented the meeting process. Many of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club continue to meet (), having formed the 6800 Club, named after the Motorola (now Freescale) 6800 microprocessor. Occasionally and variously renamed after the release of the 6800, 6809, and other microprocessors, the group continues to meet monthly in Cupertino, California. Though the Homebrew members were hobbyists, most of them had an electronic engineering or computer programming background. They came to the meetings to talk about the Altair 8800 and other

neg: Computer museum Museum in Mountain View, California, the American Computer & Robotics Museum in Bozeman, Montana, The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge and the Nexon Computer Museum in Jeju Province. Some specialize in the early history of computing, others in the era that started with the first personal computers such as the Apple I and Altair 8800, Apple IIs, older Apple Macintoshes, Commodore Internationals, Amigas, IBM PCs and more rare computers such as the Osborne 1. Some concentrate more on research and conservation, others more on education and entertainment. There are also private

neg: Lee Felsenstein to become play, then tools must become toys." Felsenstein was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club, which formed in 1975 in response to the appearance of the Altair 8800 computer kit. With a handy yardstick, Felsenstein "moderated" meetings at the SLAC Auditorium. He was less a chair than a keeper of chaos. In this heyday of the development of the first personal computers, Felsenstein designed the Intel 8080 based "SOL" computer from Processor Technology, the Pennywhistle modem, and other early "S-100 bus" era designs. These existed in a market space with early generation hobbyist microcomputers from

neg: Pertec Computer The system was designed to handle a variety of business applications including word processing, inventory control and accounting. This system was prone to overheating and had a very short life span. The new system allowed for MITS peripherals including Altair Floppy Disc, Altair Line Printer, Teletypewriter, and the Altair CRT terminal. The printer was a bidirectional Mits/Altair C-700 that could print 60 characters/second and 26 lines/minute. Pertec's primary line of computer products was aimed at the key-to-disk minicomputer systems that were used as front-end data processors for the IBM 360/370 and similar systems. This line was opened in the first

neg: Arithmometer of qualified workers. Because it was the first mass-marketed and the first widely copied calculator, its design marks the starting point of the mechanical calculator industry, which evolved into the electronic calculator industry and which, through the accidental design of the first microprocessor to be commercialized, the Intel 4004, for one of Busicom's calculators in 1971, led to the first commercially available personal computer, the Altair in 1975. Its user interface was used throughout during the 120 years that the mechanical calculator industry lasted. First with its clones and then with the Odhner arithmometer and its clones, which was a

neg: Ashton-Tate of clients and staff. Right after the convention, George Tate suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 40 on August 10, 1984. David Cole on October 29 announced his resignation and left for Ziff-Davis, leaving Ed Esber to become CEO. Cole hired Esber because he was the marketing expert who launched VisiCalc and who built the first distribution channels for personal computer software. (VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet and is credited for sparking the personal computer revolution and was the first commercially successful personal computer software package.) During Esber's seven-year tenure, Ashton Tate had its most prosperous

neg: Harry Garland Amplifiers" and "Understanding CMOS Integrated Circuits". The MITS Altair computer, which launched the microcomputer industry, was introduced in January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" magazine. That same issue carried an article by Garland and Melen on solid-state image sensors. The following month they, together with their Stanford colleague Terry Walker, published the design of the world's first completely digital solid-state camera in "Popular Electronics", and began work on developing an interface to connect the camera (which they called called the “Cyclops”), to the MITS Altair computer. MITS introduced the Cyclops Camera as a peripheral for the Altair Computer in January

neg: Personal computer first time since the first quarter of 2012. According to research firm Gartner, the growth mainly came from the business market while the consumer market experienced decline. Selling prices of personal computers steadily declined due to lower costs of production and manufacture, while the capabilities of computers increased. In 1975, an Altair kit sold for only around US$400, but required customers to solder components into circuit boards; peripherals required to interact with the system in alphanumeric form instead of blinking lights would add another $2,000, and the resultant system was only of use to hobbyists. At their introduction in 1981,

neg: Homebrew Computer Club Altair. One such influential event was the publication of Bill Gates's Open Letter to Hobbyists, which lambasted the early hackers of the time for violating the copyrights of commercial software programs. Paul Terrell, partner in Repco who was the exclusive sales rep company for MITS in Northern California, was a member of the Club and would provide information at the meetings about the progress of the Altair 8800 in the factory and provide copies of the MITS Newsletter to members. He later started Byte Shop, an affordable computer store in Mountain View, California, and bought the first 50 Apple I

neg: Gateway, Inc. out of their product line. Gateway, Inc. Gateway Inc., previously Gateway 2000, was an American computer hardware company based in South Dakota and later California, that developed, manufactured, supported, and marketed a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories. It was acquired by Acer in October 2007. Gateway was founded on September 5, 1985, on a farm outside Sioux City, Iowa, by Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond. Originally called Gateway 2000, it was one of the first widely successful direct-sales PC companies, utilizing a sales model copied from Dell, and playing up its Iowa roots with

neg: Microsoft BASIC the 1980s, and extended along the way. Contrary to the original Altair BASIC, most home computer BASICs are resident in ROM, and thus are available on the machines at power-on in the form of the characteristic "codice_1" prompt. Hence, Microsoft's and other variants of BASIC constitute a significant and visible part of the user interface of many home computers' rudimentary operating systems. By 1981, Microsoft BASIC was so popular that even companies that already had a BASIC licensed the language, such as IBM for its Personal Computer, and Atari, who sold MS BASIC alongside its own Atari BASIC. IBM's Don

neg: TK-80 220 mm. It supported BASIC. TK-80 The TK-80 (Training Kit μCOM-80) was an 8080-based single-board computer kit developed by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1976. It was originally developed for engineers who considered using the "μCOM-80 family" in their product. It was successful among hobbyists in late 1970s in Japan, due to its reasonable price and an expensive computer terminal not being required. On February 1976, NEC formed the Microcomputer Sales section in the Integrated Circuit division, and began to provide development environments for their microprocessors. However, they visited customers and explained, but it was difficult for them to understand

neg: Popular Electronics their "Hands-On Electronics" magazine was renamed to "Popular Electronics" in February 1989, and published until December 1999. The Popular Electronics trademark was then acquired by John August Media, who revived the magazine, the digital edition of which is hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com, along with sister titles, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Astronomy. A cover story on "Popular Electronics" could launch a new product or company. The most famous issue, January 1975, had the Altair 8800 computer on the cover and ignited the home computer revolution. Paul Allen showed that issue to Bill Gates. They wrote a BASIC interpreter for the Altair computer

neg: TK-80 TK-80 The TK-80 (Training Kit μCOM-80) was an 8080-based single-board computer kit developed by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1976. It was originally developed for engineers who considered using the "μCOM-80 family" in their product. It was successful among hobbyists in late 1970s in Japan, due to its reasonable price and an expensive computer terminal not being required. On February 1976, NEC formed the Microcomputer Sales section in the Integrated Circuit division, and began to provide development environments for their microprocessors. However, they visited customers and explained, but it was difficult for them to understand how to use a microprocessor.

neg: Altair BASIC Extended BASIC for $350. The prices were discounted to $60, $75, and $150 respectively for those who purchased "8K of Altair memory, and an Altair I/O board." The language versions were available on paper tape or cassette tape. As they expected, the Altair was very popular with hobbyists such as the Homebrew Computer Club. Altair BASIC, as MITS' preferred BASIC interpreter, was also popular. However, the hobbyists took a "share-alike" approach to software and thought nothing of copying the BASIC interpreter for other hobbyists. Homebrew member Dan Sokol was especially prolific; after somehow obtaining a pre-market tape of the interpreter,

neg: Gateway, Inc. Gateway, Inc. Gateway Inc., previously Gateway 2000, was an American computer hardware company based in South Dakota and later California, that developed, manufactured, supported, and marketed a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories. It was acquired by Acer in October 2007. Gateway was founded on September 5, 1985, on a farm outside Sioux City, Iowa, by Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond. Originally called Gateway 2000, it was one of the first widely successful direct-sales PC companies, utilizing a sales model copied from Dell, and playing up its Iowa roots with low-tech advertisements proclaiming "Computers from

neg: Trek-80 ways from the original; the player is in command of the USS "Hephaestus" and battles the "Jovian"s, but the game is otherwise similar. Dompier began development of Trek-80 while the first commercial versions of VDM-1 were being developed at the newly-created Processor Technology, which had formed to sell add-in cards for the recently released Altair 8800 computer. Dompier was familiar with "Trek73", and had purchased a teleprinter so he could play a copy running on the DECISION computer at the Lawrence Hall of Science from home. Steve North reviewed "Trek-80" and an S-100 version of "Spacewar!" in the August 1977

neg: Dan Bricklin Bricklin co-developed VisiCalc in 1979, making it the first electronic spreadsheet readily available for home and office use. It ran on an Apple II computer, and was considered a fourth generation software program. VisiCalc is widely credited for fueling the rapid growth of the personal computer industry. Instead of doing financial projections with manually calculated spreadsheets, and having to recalculate with every single cell in the sheet, VisiCalc allowed the user to change any cell, and have the entire sheet automatically recalculated. This could turn 20 hours of work into 15 minutes and allowed for more creativity. In 1979, Bricklin

neg: Ed Roberts (computer engineer) not impressed. The Altair computer with 7 kB of memory that BASIC required was still being tested and would not be ready until the next day. Roberts had booked Allen in the most expensive hotel in Albuquerque and the room was $40 more than Allen brought with him. Roberts paid for the room and wondered who is this software guy who can not afford a room in a hotel. The next day the Altair with 7 kB had finally passed its memory test and Allen had their BASIC interpreter on a paper tape Bill Gates had created just before Allen

neg: Wizadore of difficulty. As a marketing ploy, Wizadore offered a monthly prize of £100 to people who completed it (up to the end of August 1985). Wizadore Wizadore is a computer game developed by Imagine Software and released on cassette tape for the BBC Micro home computer in 1985. It was developed by Chris Roberts (then aged 16 and his first commercially successful game) and released by Imagine Software in February 1985 for the BBC Micro home computer and became a best seller. Wizadore is a simple side scrolling platform game with a three item inventory. The player's character is a

neg: Xerox Alto There was no spreadsheet or database software. The first electronic spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, did not arise until 1979. Technically, the Alto was a small minicomputer, but it could be considered a personal computer in the sense that it was used by one person sitting at a desk, in contrast with the mainframe computers and other minicomputers of the era. It was arguably "the first personal computer", although this title is disputed by others. More significantly (and perhaps less controversially), it may be considered to be one of the first workstation systems in the style of single-user machines such as the

neg: Trenton Computer Festival Trenton Computer Festival The Trenton Computer Festival, founded in 1976, is the oldest continuously-running personal computer show in the world. It is considered to be the first major fair for personal computer hobbyists. It was founded 1976 at Trenton State College by Sol Libes and Allen Katz with the assistance of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey (ACGNJ). The initial event drew a crowd of approximately 1,500, and featured lectures, vendor tables, and an outdoor computer market, all aimed at the amateur computer hobbyist. By 1992, it had moved to the Mercer County Community College, and by 1999 it

neg: Open Letter to Hobbyists complete product line. The "MITS-Mobile" team toured the United States giving seminars featuring the Altair Computer and Altair BASIC. The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist club in Palo Alto, CA. At the first meeting in March, 1975 Steve Dompier gave an account of his visit to the MITS factory in Albuquerque where he attempted to pick up his order for one of everything. He left with a computer kit with only 256 bytes of memory. At the April 16, 1975 club meeting Dompier keyed in a small program that played the song "Fool on the Hill" on

neg: History of computing hardware (1960s–present) as per published designs. For example, many thousands of people built the Galaksija home computer later in the early 1980s. It was arguably the Altair computer that spawned the development of Apple, as well as Microsoft which produced and sold the Altair BASIC programming language interpreter, Microsoft's first product. The second generation of microcomputers, those that appeared in the late 1970s, sparked by the unexpected demand for the kit computers at the electronic hobbyist clubs, were usually known as home computers. For business use these systems were less capable and in some ways less versatile than the large business computers

neg: Motorola 6800 cover of the November 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics". The Altair 680 used a 6800 microprocessor and, unlike the SWTPC machine, also had a front panel with toggle switches and LEDs. The initial design had to be revised and first deliveries of the Altair 680B were in April 1976. Sphere was a small startup company and had difficulties delivering all of the products they announced. They filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 1977. The Altair 680B was popular but MITS focused most of the resources on their Altair 8800 computer system and they exited the hobby market in

neg: History of computing hardware (1960s–present) the machine after switching it on the bootstrap loader program had to be entered, without error, in binary, then a paper tape containing a BASIC interpreter loaded from a paper-tape reader. Keying the loader required setting a bank of eight switches up or down and pressing the "load" button, once for each byte of the program, which was typically hundreds of bytes long. The computer could run BASIC programs once the interpreter had been loaded. The MITS Altair, the first commercially successful microprocessor kit, was featured on the cover of "Popular Electronics" magazine in January 1975. It was the world's

neg: History of personal computers from a practical perspective, functioned as if it were indeed powered by an 8008, making it a "de facto" microcomputer. The Kenbak-1, released in early 1971, is considered by the Computer History Museum to be the world's first personal computer. It was designed and invented by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was first sold in early 1971. Unlike a modern personal computer, the Kenbak-1 was built of small-scale integrated circuits, and did not use a microprocessor. The system first sold for US$750. Only around 40 machines were ever built and sold. In 1973, production of the Kenbak-1

neg: Fab@Home sensors, as well as esoteric materials for bioprinting and food printing. The project was closed in 2012 when it was clear that the project's goal was achieved and distribution of DIY and consumer printers outpaced the sales of industrial printers for the first time. The project was led by students at Cornell University's department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. The effort was inspired by the history of the Altair 8800, one of the first DIY home computer kits released in 1975. The Altair 8800 is largely credited with triggering the home computing revolution and the transition from the industrial mainframe

neg: Altair, Texas Altair, Texas Altair is an unincorporated community in Colorado County, Texas, United States. It is located at the four-way stop sign junction of U.S. Route 90 Alternate and State Highway 71. The community had an estimated population of 30 in 2000. Altair is located at (29.5713505, -96.4541355). It is situated along U.S. Highway 90A in south central Colorado County, about nine miles south of Columbus and 28 miles north of El Campo. The community dates from the late 1880s. Located on the R.E. and John Stafford ranch property, the community developed into a cattle loading station that was initially called

neg: Altair (rocket stage) Altairs were used as the third stage of early Delta rockets. The fourth stage of the Scout rocket also used the "Altair" stage. Altair (rocket stage) The Altair was a solid-fuel rocket with a fiberglass casing, initially developed for use as the third stage of Vanguard rockets. It was manufactured by Allegany Ballistics Laboratory (ABL) as the X-248. It was also sometimes called the Burner 1. The X-248 was one of two third-stage designs used during Project Vanguard. Early launches used a stage developed by the Grand Central Rocket Company, but later launches used the X-248 which enabled the Vanguard

neg: Altair 8800 days but it was months before they could meet that. Roberts focused on delivering the computer; all of the options would wait until they could keep pace with the orders. MITS claimed to have delivered 2,500 Altair 8800s by the end of May. The number was over 5,000 by August 1975. MITS had under 20 employees in January but had grown to 90 by October 1975. The Altair 8800 computer was a break-even sale for MITS. They needed to sell additional memory boards, I/O boards and other options to make a profit. The system came with a "1024 word" memory

neg: Cromemco Cyclops the Altair computer. They named their new venture "Cromemco" after the Stanford University dormitory (Crothers Memorial Hall) where they both had lived as graduate students. In January 1976 MITS introduced the Cromemco Cyclops Camera as the first peripheral for the Altair Computer. The Cyclops Camera used an innovative image sensor that was actually a modified MOS computer memory chip. The opaque cover on the chip was removed and replaced with a glass lid. The theory of operation was described in the original "Popular Electronics" article. Initially the 1024 memory locations, which were arranged in a 32 × 32 array, were