Here are a few news items about the passing of computer pioneer Ed Roberts.
* Bill Gates Remembers Personal Computer Pioneer (WSJ Blog). Here is an excerpt,
“Paul Allen and I saw the Popular Electronics article and called to say we were doing software. They thought that was interesting. We worked hard and a month later we called back to ask what instructions to use to connect to a teletype. They said we were the first people who had asked that so maybe we did have something. […]
Paul flew out to MITS with the paper tape and Ed met him at the airport. Paul figured out how to load the BASIC and it ran the first time on one of the few kits MITS itself had ever assembled. Everyone was amazed. This was in April 1975.
I went on leave from Harvard in June and negotiated the license agreement with MITS in July. Microsoft got a royalty for each BASIC sold. Then we wrote fancier versions of the BASIC – 8k Basic, Extended Basic and Disk Basic. Paul actually worked for MITS as VP of Software although I did not. We got a software library going and wrote regular articles for the Altair newsletter that David Bunnell was hired by MITS to create. I gave my first speech at an Altair convention. MITS got a big GM van and went around the country helping to set up computer clubs.
[…] MITS sold over 10,000 of the Altairs and had to hire people to deal with the volume. Ed deserves to be called the father of the personal computer.”
* Remembering Ed Roberts (Bill Gates & Paul G. Allen)
* I remember the Altair and it changed the world (ZDNet)
* Ed Roberts, Designer of Altair 8800, Dead at 68 (PC Magazine)
* PC Pioneer Ed Roberts Dies at 68 (PC World)
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