H. Edward Roberts
It was before the IBM PC was invented, before Apple Computer existed and before Microsoft took over the world. February 1973. Elvis Presley had just had a huge concert in Hawaii, Watergate was only the name of a new office complex someplace and peace had scarcely been announced in Vietnam.
Pink Floyd were about to release Dark Side of the Moon.
Closer to home, Papua New Guinea was still run by Australia, the French were blowing up Mururoa Atoll and the Sydney Opera house wasn’t finished.
Bill Gates still had zits (Okay I’m speculating there).
In the midst of this our industry was born. A young Vietnamese man, Andre Truong Trong Thi created the worlds first microprocessor based personal computer, the Micral, for the French Institute of Agricultural Research. He died on April 4th, 2005.
Last thursday, on April 1st, H. Edward Roberts died aged 68. No joke. In 1975 he invented the Altair 8800, credited with becoming the first commercially successful personal computer. In Ikea form (some assembly required), it was $439.
Without him our industry would arguably not exist in the form that it does. All of us working in it would, almost certainly, be doing slightly different jobs. Bill Gates and Paul Allen stood on his shoulders to create Microsoft.
Here is his Obituary in the New York Times.
And here is Bill Gates & Paul Allens tribute to him.
This is his Wikipedia page.
You know your industry is well and truly mainstream when you’re paying tribute to it’s pioneers.
Carlton
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