The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975, based on the Intel 8080A CPU. Sold as a kit through Popular Electronics magazine, the designers intended to sell only a few hundred to hobbyists, and were surprised when they sold over ten times that many in the first month. Today the Altair is widely recognized as the spark that led to the personal computer revolution of the next few years: The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.

History

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While serving at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force base, New Mexico, Ed Roberts and Forrest M. Mims III decided to use their electronics background to produce small kits for model rocket hobbyists. Roberts and Mims, along with Stan Cagle and Robert Zaller, founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in Roberts' garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and started selling radio transmitters and instruments for model rockets. In 1969 Roberts bought out the others and moved to a larger office, where he manufactured calculator kits for hobbyists. Mims assisted by writing manuals for some of the products in return for kits. In 1972, Texas Instruments developed their own calculator chip and started selling complete calculators at more than half the going rate. MITS was devastated by this, as were many other companies, and Roberts struggled to reduce his quarter-million dollar debt. With the release of the first 8-bit microprocessor, the Intel 8008, in 1972, and the more powerful 8080 in 1974, a number of hobbyists started designing microcomputer kits. In July 1974, one such design, Jonathan Titus' well thought-out Mark-8, based on the 8008, was advertised in Radio-Electronics magazine. The design was purely on paper, requiring the builder to track down the parts one at a time, a task that was basically impossible outside of California. Although the Mark-8 was not a success, the editors at Popular Electronics realized that someone was going to be the first to deliver a "real" kit, and decided they wanted to do it. At this point the story becomes somewhat less clear.

The design

Roberts looked for a deal on CPUs, and eventually talked Intel into supplying him with cosmetically blemished 8080's for $75, when they normally sold for $360. In fact the deal wasn't quite as shrewd as Roberts thought at the time; Intel chose the $360 price simply as a play on the famous IBM System/360 mainframe. The name finally decided upon for the computer came from Solomon's 12-year-old daughter, Lauren. She suggested Altair, which was the destination for the Starship Enterprise during an episode of Star Trek that she was watching.

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The Altair 8800, the first PC, was named after a galaxy on Star Trek.
ThatGirlCA (ThatGirlCA) Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:44:21 -0000
The Altair 8800, the first PC, was named after a galaxy on Star Trek.
@altair8800　りょうちゃんと君の顔が載ってる求人サイトのURLをダイレクトで送っておいたよｗもっと怒りたまえ！
e_riko (Eriko) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:26:34 -0000
@altair8800　りょうちゃんと君の顔が載ってる求人サイトのURLをダイレクトで送っておいたよｗもっと怒りたまえ！
@ogaoga_thom @altair8800 @yongpil　前の会社の社長は同じ予備校の同じコースに通っていたことを知り何となく嫌な気分ｗあ、前に「僕、後輩ですよ」って言われたことあったかも・・・彼は文系で私は理系だから違うってことにしておこう・・・
e_riko (Eriko) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:50:55 -0000
@ogaoga_thom @altair8800 @yongpil　前の会社の社長は同じ予備校の同じコースに通っていたことを知り何となく嫌な気分ｗあ、前に「僕、後輩ですよ」って言われたことあったかも・・・彼は文系で私は理系だから違うってことにしておこう・・・
@ogaoga_thom @ogaoga_thomが昨日ときょうと前髪が板になってる人に「彼女居る人はいいよね～、どうせ俺なんか」とか言われてるんだろーなーとか想像してみたｗあと、@altair8800のクリスマスなんて去年終わった発言にもウケタｗエンジニアチーム惨敗ｗ
e_riko (Eriko) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:10:09 -0000
@ogaoga_thom @ogaoga_thomが昨日ときょうと前髪が板になってる人に「彼女居る人はいいよね～、どうせ俺なんか」とか言われてるんだろーなーとか想像してみたｗあと、@altair8800のクリスマスなんて去年終わった発言にもウケタｗエンジニアチーム惨敗ｗ
The nerd in me really wants an Altair 8800 so I can flip a bunch of switches to figure out 2+2.
bulentm (Bulent M.) Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:33:36 -0000
The nerd in me really wants an Altair 8800 so I can flip a bunch of switches to figure out 2+2.
@altair8800 これ、飲みすぎると寝れなくなるぞ。コカコーラの300倍のカフェインで、アメリカで中毒患者激増中！ｗｗ
DJmart7 (Mart Takeuchi) Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:39 -0000
@altair8800 これ、飲みすぎると寝れなくなるぞ。コカコーラの300倍のカフェインで、アメリカで中毒患者激増中！ｗｗ

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