History of the First Personal Computer

We all know and love the invention of the personal computer. It has made life extremely accessible to outlets where we can grow in knowledge. What are you reading this blog on right now, your personal computer. Can you imagine a time when you had to wait 6 hours for you search engine to retrieve information or if you had to use a certain code of switches to output one email. Today the world is dominated by technologies such computers and I am gong to tell you how that came about.

In 1613 the word computer only meant one thing, it meant someone that could preform calculations or configuration of some sort. It was not until 1822 that a huge created was made by Charles Babbage. Babbage created what was known as the first computer. I was large and did no resemble anything we have today relating to a computer. It was extremely slow and could not do much. This invention then sparked 153 years later in 1974 the first at home personal computer created by Ed Roberts. It was called the MITS Altair 8800 and was sold at the price of $750.

                                                                                                                  

The computer was accessible for people at home but that did not mean it was the most convenient at home. The Altair 8800 was composed three parts, the screen, the switch board and the mouse. SO when purchasing a Altair 8800 you had to buy all 3 items that were called a kit. IN the selling process Roberts thought that he would have minimal success and sell around one hundred computers for personal use. Instead he was extremely successful and sold computers by the thousands in the first few months.

The computers where sold by mail and could be purchased by radio or magazine ads. The computer would then be mailed to the home as kits and the consumer would then easily assemble the computer in their home. This invention sparked what is considered the first step to the revolution of computers. The computers necessary, Roberts had Altair 8800 being sold to homes, universities, schools and companies. At the start of Roberts launch he told his banker that he had to sell at least 800 computers to break even on his invention.  The realize date for the Altair 8800 was December 19th 1974 and by the month of February Roberts had 1,000 orders. Roberts was finding himself having to hire more employees to answer the over whelming amounts of orders being called in. In August of 1975 Roberts had over 5,000 orders and are his employees from 20 to 90 by that time. The delivery processes was long, it took about 60 days in average to receive the computer, although the over whelming amount of orders that came in, the delivery times got longer.

The computer held about 256 bytes which is about 1024 words of memory. Roberts knew people would need more storage is he began to sell additional memory and interface boards. This could hold more words, more memory and basic language. Roberts later announced that the computers would still be sold around $750 but then decided to provide options to add one or two more memory boards would cost around $496. In a break down the computer kit cost $496, you have the choice to decided between 1024 word memory board for $176, or 4069 word memory for $264. Roberts also offered a Parallel Interface Board for $92.

In that January in 1975 Roberts was contacted by two undergraduates from Harvard University contacted Roberts about helping design more Basic Language for the Altair MITS 8800. The two men where Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Roberts allowed them to show their interest in helping him out. Although Gates and Allen had no Basic Language offer yet but they began to work on a self-made simulator for the computer. The two worked very hard to create a software that would change the computer game, and they did. Competitors from others began to creep in so the two decided to race the new design to Roberts and it was launched.

In 1977 Roberts sold MITTS to Pertec Computer Corps for $6 million. After the sell Roberts went to Mercer Univesity and enrolled in their medical program and later became a doctor. He moved to Cochran, Georgia and continued on as a doctor until he passed away on April 1st 2010.

The invention of the first personal computer was huge and sparked so much technologies that we have today. Soon after the release of the MITTS Altair 8800, a company decided to start manufacturing computer, the companies name was Apple. If it was not for Roberts our technology might not be what it is today, and Apple would probably be different.