Henry Edward Roberts is not one of the shining personalities of the computer industry, yet he was the first to have developed a mainstream computing device, the Altair 8800 personal computer. Roberts was also the first employer of Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen. He died last Thursday from Pneumonia in a hospital in Macon, Georgia. He was 68.
Henry Edward Roberts
Roberts founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in 1970 with the intention to sell electronic kits to model rocket builders. In 1971 he had his first rather unexpected breakthrough with a calculator that was featured by Popular Electronics. In 1975, he created the Altair 8800, which made history by becoming the first generally affordable personal computer. Once again, Popular Electronics featured the $397 kit. MITS sold more than 5000 units within 8 months.
In July 1975, MITS signed a contract with Bill Gates and Paul Allen, back then students at Harvard. Gates and Allen supplied an operating version, Altair Basic, to MITS and received a $3000 initial payment and a license fee for each copy shipped. By 1975, Paul Allen was working at MITS as vice president and Bill Gates as software specialist.
The three parted in 1977 after a legal arbitration process, when Gates and Allen wanted to sub-license Basic, but Roberts felt it was his software as the two had worked for him. It was the beginning of Microsoft, which licensed 8080 Basic to other companies. MITS was sold to Pertec Computer in 1976 for $6 million in stock. Roberts received $2 million. Pertec was later acquired by Triumph-Adler and then resold to Scan-Optics in 1987.
Bill Gates reportedly visited Roberts shortly before his death. Allen and Gates published a statement on Gates’ website: “Ed was truly a pioneer in the personal computer revolution, and didn’t always get the recognition he deserved. He was an intense man with a great sense of humor, and he always cared deeply about the people who worked for him, including us. 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.”
Henry Edward Roberts moved back to rural Georgia in 1977 and used his proceeds to purchase a farm. He started attending medical school in 1982 and graduated with an M.D. reportedly first in class in 1982. Until recently, he operated a small practice in Cochran, Georgia.
Roberts is survived by his mother, Edna Wilcher Roberts, his wife Rosa Roberts; his sons Edward, Melvin and Clark; his daughter Dawn Roberts; three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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