Altair 8800

In the mid-1970s, two computers — the Altair 8800 and the Apple I — not only proved that microcomputers could reach individual users, but also planted the seeds for two of today’s biggest tech giants: Microsoft and Apple. From Hobbyist Kits to Ready-to-Use Machines In January 1975, the cover of Popular Electronics featured a do-it-yourself microcomputer kit — the Altair 8800, designed by Ed Roberts of MITS. The machine was built around an 8-bit Intel 8080 processor running at 2 MHz. Users assembled the computer from a box full of circuit boards and chips, and entered programs manually using a front panel of switches and LEDs. Although the Altair had no keyboard or monitor, it could be connected to a terminal such as the Teletype ASR-33 (not the VT100, which only appeared in 1978) via a serial interface card. The kits were sold for $395 — a price accessible to enthusiasts in an era dominated by expensive mainframes. Soon, the S-100 bus standard emerged from the Altair’s design, enabling a wide range of expansion cards. The biggest breakthrough came with software: in March 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen presented Ed Roberts with a BASIC interpreter, written using an Intel 8080 emulator on a PDP-10 minicomputer. Altair BASIC not only made the machine useful — it became the first product of Microsoft. For the first time, hobbyists could write programs in a high-level language instead of entering raw machine code. Photo: Altair 8800 with 8″ floppy disk system, Vintage Computer Festival (Mountain View, 2004); public domain (Swtpc6800) “The Altair 8800 was the product that ignited the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s.”— Harry Garland Apple I: The First Apple Computer Product Exactly one year after the Altair’s debut, on April 11, 1976, Steve Wozniak introduced the mainboard of the Apple I computer. Unlike MITS’s DIY kit, the Apple I was delivered as a fully assembled, ready-to-connect unit, featuring a video output that displayed text at 40×24 characters, a cassette interface, and 4 KB of RAM. Each unit was hand-assembled in the Los Altos garage of Steve Jobs’ parents, and its price of $666.66 made it a competitive alternative to the Altair 8800. The Apple I was the first computer that allowed connection to a standard keyboard and TV monitor, making it far more user-friendly. Around 200 units were produced over the following months, with fewer than half sold to customers. Yet that modest volume was enough for Jobs and Wozniak to formally register Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Wozniak later recalled that their goal was to create a machine that was “fully enclosed and ready to run out of the box” — a key distinction from earlier kits. Thanks to this approach, users could immediately start programming in BASIC, which was provided with the computer. Photo: Apple I, Smithsonian Institution exhibit; CC BY-SA 2.0 (rebelpilot) Legacy and Industry Impact The S-100 bus introduced with the Altair 8800 became the basis for a broad ecosystem of expansion cards, influencing the design of many microcomputers. Altair BASIC marked the beginning of Microsoft — the first global software company, whose products (MS-DOS, Windows) would dominate the PC market for decades. The Apple I’s readiness as a complete system accelerated the development of personal computers for mainstream users, paving the way for the Apple II and later models. In the Los Altos garage, a hardware–software integration business model was born — one that Apple itself would continue to evolve and refine. Conclusion he birth of personal microcomputers was not the work of one person or one company. It was the convergence of two parallel visions — the hobbyist DIY approach of the Altair 8800 and the ready-to-use consumer product concept of the Apple I — that created a new market, where technology became democratized. Gates and Allen, Jobs and Wozniak, each introduced new paradigms: software as a business and hardware for the masses. Their breakthroughs helped shape the IT industry — and continue to drive its evolution today.