POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Altair 8800 computer 1975

The Altair 8800 is regarded by most computer historians as the first personal computer. Made by Ed Roberts' tiny company MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it used the new Intel 8080 processor. It first appeared on the January 1975 cover of Popular Electronics, selling by mail order for $395 as a kit and $498 assembled. Within 3 months 4000 people had ordered it. It was the first personal computer to sell in large numbers. The Altair was for people who liked to play with electronic gadgets. Hobbyists who succesfully put together their Altairs ended up with a blue box-shaped machine that measured 43.2 x 45.7 x 17.7cm. To enter programs or data, you had to set the toggle switches on the front. There was no keyboard, video terminal or paper tape reader. The first Altairs came with only 256 bytes of memory. They also lacked output devices such as printers. Results of a program were indicated by the pattern of flashing lights on the front panel. The Altair could do very little except blink lights. But it was a real computer; a personal computer that people could own - and the hobbyists loved it. They understood the potential of owning a general purpose, stored program computer. They appreciated the social as well as the technical implications of the word 'personal'. The PC's social appeal was that its owner could do as he or she wished with it. Enthusiasm for the Altair and other personal computers spawned computer hobbyist clubs, newsletters, magazines, conventions etc. Hundreds of tiny firms sprang up to make personal computers. In 1975 Micro Soft [sic] Corporation was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen whose careers took off when they created BASIC software specifically for the Altair. The personal computer boom had commenced. In just several months other companies began building microcomputers, this time for business people to use.