[RVRC] Developer of early personal computer dies in Ga.

[Gerry Jurrens]

Gerry N2GJ has sent you a Pocket Express® News Article


GJ says: I SO wanted one of these Altairs in the 1970s.

Developer of early personal computer dies in Ga.


ATLANTA - Dr. Henry Edward Roberts, a developer of an early personal  
computer that inspired Bill Gates to found Microsoft, died Thursday in  
Georgia. He was 68.

Roberts, whose build-it-yourself kit concentrated thousands of dollars  
worth of computer capability in an affordable package, inspired Bill  
Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allen to come up with Microsoft in  
1975 after they saw an article about the MITS Altair 8800 in Popular  
Electronics.

Roberts, an ex-military man, later went on to careers as a farmer and  
a physician, but continued to keep up with computer advances: He  
recently told Gates he hoped to work with new, nanotechnology-enhanced  
machines, according to son David Roberts.

"He did think it was pretty neat, some of the stuff they're doing with  
the processors," said David Roberts, who confirmed Gates rushed to  
Georgia Friday to be with his mentor.

Roberts died in a Macon hospital after a long bout with pneumonia,  
according to his family.

"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," Gates and Allen said in a joint statement released  
Thursday. "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."

The man often credited with kickstarting the modern computer era never  
intended to lead a revolution.

Born in Miami in 1941, Roberts spent time in the U.S. Air Force and  
earned an electrical engineering degree from Oklahoma State University  
in 1968, according to information provided by his family.

He later parlayed his interest in technology into a business making  
calculators; when large firms like Texas Instruments began cornering  
the business, Roberts soon found himself in debt, David Roberts said.

Meanwhile, he was gaining an interest in computers - at the time,  
hulking machines available almost exclusively at universities.

"He came up with the idea that you could have one of these computers  
on your own," said David Roberts, adding his father expected to sell a  
few units. "Basically, he did it to try to get out of debt. "

Roberts himself would later describe the effort as an "almost  
megalomaniac kind of scheme" that he pursued out of youthful ambition.

"But at that time you know we just lacked the, eh, the benefits of age  
and experience," Roberts said on a program called "Triumph of the  
Nerds" that aired on PBS in 1996. "We didn't know we couldn't do it."

His son described his father as a tinkerer who surveyed his friends  
before building his personal computer.

"My assumption was that there were a bunch of nuts out there like me  
that would like to have a computer," Roberts told the Atlanta Journal- 
Constitution, in a 1997 interview. "To engineers and electronics  
people, it's the ultimate gadget."

The Altair was nothing like the ultra slim laptops of today: Operated  
by switches and with no display screen, it looked like little more  
than a metal box covered in blinking, red lights.

"In the early days it was pretty useless. People just bought it  
thinking that it would be neat to build a computer," Gates said in a  
video history interview with the Smithsonian Institution.

Roberts founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, which  
sold the kits. A young Gates and Allen would later found their  
fledgling Microsoft firm in Albuquerque, N.M., where MITS was based,  
and provide a computer language that helped hobbyists program and  
operate the Altair.

The men would eventually feud after Gates and Allen began selling  
versions of BASIC - or Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code  
- created for Altair to competitors, according to the 2003 book,  
"Leaders of the Information Age."

David Roberts said the men had since overcome their differences, and  
his father had remained an influence in both their lives.

He sold his company in 1977 and retired to a life of vegetable farming  
in rural Georgia before going to medical school and getting a medical  
degree from Mercer University, in 1986.

Roberts worked as an internist, seeing as many as 22 patients a day,  
his son said. But he never lost his interest in modern technology,  
even asking about Apple's highly anticipated iPad from his sick bed.

"He was interested to see one," said Roberts, who called his father "a  
true renaissance man."

A funeral is planned Monday, in Cochran.

---

Associated Press Writer Daniel Yee contributed to this report.


By DIONNE WALKER Associated Press Writer


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GJ

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Pls 4give typos & brevity!