Altair 8800 – 1975

By 1975 the market for the personal computer was demanding a product that did not
require an electrical engineering background and thus the first mass produced and
marketed personal computer (available both as a kit or assembled) was welcomed with
open arms. Developers Edward Roberts, William Yates and Jim Bybee spent 1973-1974
to develop the MITS (Micro Instruments Telemetry Systems ) Altair 8800. The price was
$375, contained 256 bytes of memory (not 256k),but had no keyboard, no display, and
no auxiliary storage device. Later, Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their first product for
the Altair -- a BASIC compiler (named after a planet on a Star Trek episode).