MITS Dead
MITS
KindCompany
Founded1969
Defunct1977
StatusDead
FoundersEd Roberts
FieldMicrocomputers
Sources100computers.com ↗
An Albuquerque calculator-kit company that put the Altair 8800 on the cover of Popular Electronics and accidentally started the personal computer industry.
1960198020002020
Created Altair 8800
Ed Roberts's mail-order calculator-kit firm was dying of the calculator price war when he bet on a $439 8080 kit for the January 1975 Popular Electronics cover. Orders flooded in — thousands — and the Homebrew Computer Club formed around it within weeks.
Gates and Allen wrote Altair BASIC and founded Micro-Soft. Roberts sold MITS to Pertec in 1977, moved to Georgia, and became a country doctor.