• Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
  • Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!

First PC Creator Dies

Collapse
X
  •  
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    First PC Creator Dies

    I'm surprised this hasn't already been posted: Dr Henry Edward Roberts, creator of the MITS Altair 8800, has died.

    The Altair 8800 was the first "Personal Computer", so called because you could own one without needing an air-conditioned room full of people in white coats as it was built around one of those new-fangled microprocessors. Its creation inspired some college students to write a BASIC interpreter for it, and to sell that interpreter they formed a company called Microsoft.

    If Dr Roberts hadn't done it, somebody else would have created a computer anybody could own. But he did it first, and as anybody who was around in those days knows (hi Zeity ) he changed the world.

    RIP Dr Roberts, and many thanks for making the world a better place for us all

    #2
    Maybe I'll have to get one of these to wear at work now

    Not too different to what I started working on which now looks like this.
    Brexit is having a wee in the middle of the room at a house party because nobody is talking to you, and then complaining about the smell.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
      The Altair 8800 was the first "Personal Computer", so called because you could own one without needing an air-conditioned room full of people in white coats as it was built around one of those new-fangled microprocessors. Its creation inspired some college students to write a BASIC interpreter for it, and to sell that interpreter they formed a company called Microsoft.
      NF, did you copy 'n' paste that paragraph from somewhere and forget the [ quote ] delimiters? There are so many inaccuracies in it that I don't think it is your words.

      I really, really hate to question you, but I believe the term "personal computer" did not come along until some years later. And then it was a marketing term ("You need one because you are important"), not a technical term.

      Also, the minicomputers had for some time eradicated the need for air-conditioned rooms by 1975.

      I had been programming small stand-alone and networked systems for microcomputers for a couple of years before I ever heard the term "personal computer".

      And wasn't Microsoft named slightly differently back then, such as MicroSoft?

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by darmstadt View Post
        Maybe I'll have to get one of these to wear at work now

        Not too different to what I started working on which now looks like this.
        I worked on machines that had this and knew folks who could enter programs using it. Some could key in a bootstrap from memory
        Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by BrollyBonce View Post
          NF, did you copy 'n' paste that paragraph from somewhere and forget the [ quote ] delimiters? There are so many inaccuracies in it that I don't think it is your words.

          I really, really hate to question you, but I believe the term "personal computer" did not come along until some years later. And then it was a marketing term ("You need one because you are important"), not a technical term.

          Also, the minicomputers had for some time eradicated the need for air-conditioned rooms by 1975.

          I had been programming small stand-alone and networked systems for microcomputers for a couple of years before I ever heard the term "personal computer".

          And wasn't Microsoft named slightly differently back then, such as MicroSoft?
          I didn't say it was then known as a Personal Computer, just that it was the first machine of the type that became known as such (I still use the term "microcomputer" myself). Mainframes still lived in air-conditioned rooms (and probably still do), although I know minicomputers didn't because I was using one at the time. Still, that was the public's perception of computers in those days.

          Microsoft was initially Micro-Soft, but I couldn't be bothered to drag in the history of the company name when they weren't the primary point.

          Comment

          Working...
          X