MITS Altair 8800 Computer
1975

The MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800 is one of the earliest commercially available personal computers. Ed Roberts sold these machines along with radio-controlled models by mail-order from the MITS factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates (then a student at Harvard), decided to write a programming language to run on the Altair. They wrote a scaled down version of BASIC, and thus began Microsoft (the company).

MITS was much less fortunate. It could never recover from its cash flow troubles. By 1977 Ed Roberts sold his company and followed his true passion by returning to medicine.

Donor: Milt Blackstone, Disabled Interest Group