Men in Computers-Ed Roberts

Men in Computers- Ed Roberts

In 1941 in Miami, Florida, Ed Roberts Father of the personal computer was born. Roberts spent most of his time in Georgia and Florida while growing up. His father is to thank for his interest in electronics, who was a home appliance repair engineer.

In 1962 he joined the U.S. Air Force and worked at a USFA Weapons Laboratory in Albuquerque. This was where he met Forrest Mims, who he found MITS with in 1969. The two worked in Robert’s garage and finally were able to run the company full time in 1973 when Roberts left the Air Force. Among the first products were model rocket kits, calculators, and radio transmitters. In 1977 the Altair microcomputer helped MITS make well over than 13million a year and for 6million dollars the two sold MITS to Pertec Computer Corporation. The Altair had no screen, no keyboard, just a series of switches to program it.

In January of 1975 issue of Popular Electronics covered everything to know about the computer. That was what brought the attention of Bill Gates and Paul Allen to the public’s eye. The two offered to create software for the computer language known as basic. Their success later led to the founding of Microsoft. Roberts said Gates was a very bright kid, but a constant headache. You couldn’t reason with him. It was his way or not at all.

In 1982 Roberts went back to medical school, right after he bought himself a farm and then fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a family doctor. He settled down in Cochran, Georgia. Roberts was an amazing person and helped everyone out by making the Altair. On April 1, 2010 Roberts died in Macon, Georgia from pneumonia. But before he passed Bill Gates flew down to pay tribute to his mentor.

Works Cited

Williamson, Marcus. The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, n.d. Web. 21 Aug. 2012. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ed-roberts-pioneering-electronics-engineer-who-built-the-first-widely-available-home-computer-1957204.html>.