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Designer of First Successful PC Henry Edward Roberts Dead in Macon, Georgia
He is known as an engineer, entrepreneur, and later in life a medical doctor. He will forever be known as the designer of the first commercially successful personal computer the Altair 8080.
In 1975 Henry Edward Roberts, called “Ed” by friends, family and associates, through his company Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems or MITS; brought his computer to the public with the help of Bill Gates and Paul Allen who developed the language, BASIC, and wrote the program to operate the machine.
Ultimately Roberts’ machine would become the PC we’re all using today. The BASIC language of the machine’s operating system (OS) has become the Microsoft Windows operating system we all know and some love to hate.
In a released joint statement from Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the two remember their colleague:
“Ed was willing to take a chance on us — two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace — and we have always been grateful to him… The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things. We will always have many fond memories of working with Ed in Albuquerque, in the MITS office right on Route 66 — where so many exciting things happened that none of us could have imagined back then.”~Paul Allen Bill Gates on the death of their associate Dr. Henry Edward Roberts.
Another interesting fact about Ed Roberts is, after selling the company in 1977 he returned to Wheeler County, Georgia, where he’d spent summers as a youngster with his grandparents. He purchased a farm and became a gentleman farmer. As fate would have it he was presented with an opportunity to fulfill his dream of becoming a medical doctor.
Mercer University, located near Roberts’ home, began a medical school training program in 1982. Ed Roberts was among the first to enroll and graduate. In 1986 he received his M.D.. He completed his residency as an internist and established his practice in Cochran, Georgia, a small town near Macon.
Dr. Roberts died of pneumonia in a hospital in Macon, Georgia. He was 68 years-old.
Click on image to view full page ad for Altair 8080 from August 1975.
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