I don't know how many HN folk are familiar with the Altair 8800 and how primitive the basic machine was. No keyboard or display - just a box with a control panel with blinken lights and binary toggle switches to enter data.
The basic machine didn't even have a boot ROM, or an operating system, so you would enter your boot code one byte at a time by using those toggle switches. A common add-on device to boot from would be a paper tape reader - e.g. with Microsoft BASIC on it.
I saw the Altair 8800 on the cover of BYTE magazine in a newsstand in LA as a child and begged my grandparents for a copy. Reading that magazine changed my life and started my journey into programming.
> He is most often known as "the father of the personal computer."
(This looks like a good article/story that is not found on Wikipedia; just sharing these links for anyone who wants an overview / know what it is about, before diving into the story.)
Wow, the price list at the bottom of that Altair article: $439 for the computer (in kit form), $262 for the 4K word memory board, $124 for the serial teletype board, and $1500 for the teletype terminal. The terminal is twice as much as the rest put together!
It's old but along the same lines; more stories of industry pioneers: Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (1992, 1996).
The package was lost in the mail? Or did he not actually finish the computer on time and this was a dog ate the homework type excuse? Depends on the degree to which he was a hustler I guess.
It's pretty obvious from the accounts of the partners he worked with that he was a straight forward guy who did the opposite of what you suggest. If you read the story, he got a detail wrong, it wasn't due to an immediate bankruptcy of the railway, but a strike that eventually let to the bankruptcy of the railway operator. In any case, the computer did not get to its destination in time. We don't know if it ever got there or not as it had become irrelevant to the story.
Nit: Railway Express Agency was intimately connected with railroad infrastructure, but it was not actually a railway. It was, essentially, FedEx, only using railways for transport instead of their own planes.
Funny story about that. The folks who build the Amiga prototype didn't want to take any chances shipping it to CES, or putting it in checked luggage. So they bought their computer its own seat on the airplane with them:
His history shows that he did not compromise his integrity to gain a momentary advantage, so I doubt he'd have succumbed in that instance. He understood those things have a tendency to backfire. It's a different world now. That was towards the end of the era where deals could be done with a handshake.
Maybe Roberts and the Altair are becoming obscure to younger people, but in the traditional story of the personal computer neither he nor the Altair were "secret" or obscure. As the article mentions, Microsoft was founded by Gates and Allen to sell a BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
I don't know how many HN folk are familiar with the Altair 8800 and how primitive the basic machine was. No keyboard or display - just a box with a control panel with blinken lights and binary toggle switches to enter data.
The basic machine didn't even have a boot ROM, or an operating system, so you would enter your boot code one byte at a time by using those toggle switches. A common add-on device to boot from would be a paper tape reader - e.g. with Microsoft BASIC on it.
Here's a video of someone entering boot code.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zbtNImG2NE
Thinking about this MVP, I wonder if in another 50 years people will describe products like the AI pin that MKBHD panned in the same way.
EDIT: "The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed... For Now"
https://youtu.be/TitZV6k8zfA
This series is great.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB3mwSROoJ4KLWM8KwK0cD1dh...
I saw the Altair 8800 on the cover of BYTE magazine in a newsstand in LA as a child and begged my grandparents for a copy. Reading that magazine changed my life and started my journey into programming.
The January 1977 issue: <https://www.digibarn.com/collections/mags/byte-covers/BYTE-1...>
I was 9. I'll never forget it. Taught myself programming that year entirely from library books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800
> It was the first commercially successful personal computer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_(computer_engineer)
> He is most often known as "the father of the personal computer."
(This looks like a good article/story that is not found on Wikipedia; just sharing these links for anyone who wants an overview / know what it is about, before diving into the story.)
Wow, the price list at the bottom of that Altair article: $439 for the computer (in kit form), $262 for the 4K word memory board, $124 for the serial teletype board, and $1500 for the teletype terminal. The terminal is twice as much as the rest put together!
Right, but bear in mind that the "terminal" here is a teletype - basically a printer with a keyboard, as shown in the picture.
If you wanted a cheaper keyboard + display option, there was always Don Lancaster's "TV Typewriter" kit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Typewriter
Musical tribute: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/a_sign_o...
As sung by Frank Hayes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMS6G83NqFQ
I am a HUGE fan of the book "Fire In The Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer."
I am an elder-millennial and it filled in a lot of gaps in the history of personal computing that I was too young to learn.
Link: https://amzn.to/40vlUkN
You might like The Dream Machine then, too!
It's old but along the same lines; more stories of industry pioneers: Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date (1992, 1996).
Also Hackers by Stephen Levy.
I also recommend Stan Veit's book; it's full of anecdotes from the early years of computer hardware and there's a podcast that reads some of the chapters aloud: https://www.classiccomputing.com/CCPodcasts/Stan_Veit/Stan_V...
I'd suggest reading the history of Digital Research, Inc. and Gary Kildall to get a more rounded perspective on this story.
The package was lost in the mail? Or did he not actually finish the computer on time and this was a dog ate the homework type excuse? Depends on the degree to which he was a hustler I guess.
It's pretty obvious from the accounts of the partners he worked with that he was a straight forward guy who did the opposite of what you suggest. If you read the story, he got a detail wrong, it wasn't due to an immediate bankruptcy of the railway, but a strike that eventually let to the bankruptcy of the railway operator. In any case, the computer did not get to its destination in time. We don't know if it ever got there or not as it had become irrelevant to the story.
Nit: Railway Express Agency was intimately connected with railroad infrastructure, but it was not actually a railway. It was, essentially, FedEx, only using railways for transport instead of their own planes.
When your company is running out of money and this is the only thing that can save you, you may do desperate things.
The reason it stood out was that he was flying himself to the meeting, so why did he ship the package separately if it was so important?
Anyhow it is unprovable so we can go with his reputation.
> The reason it stood out was that he was flying himself to the meeting, so why did he ship the package separately if it was so important?
It wasn't an iPhone you can just stick in your pocket. The thing weighed almost 150 lbs and looked something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800
I wouldn't want to be seen in an airport with the 3 other people you'd need carrying that thing around.
Funny story about that. The folks who build the Amiga prototype didn't want to take any chances shipping it to CES, or putting it in checked luggage. So they bought their computer its own seat on the airplane with them:
http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/pillow.html
His history shows that he did not compromise his integrity to gain a momentary advantage, so I doubt he'd have succumbed in that instance. He understood those things have a tendency to backfire. It's a different world now. That was towards the end of the era where deals could be done with a handshake.
(2023)
Some more discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38680698
Thanks! Macroexpanded:
Ed Roberts: The Secret Father of Modern Computing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38680698 - Dec 2023 (37 comments)
Interview with the "Father of the PC" Ed Roberts in the early 2000's [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38655639 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
Why Gates is richer than Allen - an Ed Roberts story - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1246540 - April 2010 (1 comment)
Altair developer Ed Roberts dies in Ga. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1235671 - April 2010 (13 comments)
Forrest Mims mentioned in the article was recently featured in an HN submission.
Every appearance of the word "Kirkland" here should be "Kirtland." We're talking about the Air Force base in Albuquerque, not Costco.
TIL after hearing the name a gazillion times that it's actually spelled with a "t". Apparently I am not alone...
Not hardly!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-glottalization
I am fortunate to have smart friends who introduced me to this not even a month ago.
Maybe Roberts and the Altair are becoming obscure to younger people, but in the traditional story of the personal computer neither he nor the Altair were "secret" or obscure. As the article mentions, Microsoft was founded by Gates and Allen to sell a BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
Yes, that's pretty bad linkbait. We've replaced the title with the subtitle above.
> The media at the time was talking excitedly about the launch of Microsoft Windows Vista and the new MacBook Pro.
Wouldn't Windows 7 have been the latest Windows at the time, or is this a joke calling Windows 7 just another version of Vista?
Wasn't Windows 7 a rebranding of Vista with some improvements, maybe just lipstick on a pig but still, I really don't know.
I do know I liked Win 7 way better than Vista.
"some improvements" is one of the best understatements.
It certainly was more than cosmetic, more like a complete makeover after incarceration in a health and wellness camp for a year