Ed Roberts passed away

Note : Ed Roberts was the founder of MITS and the inventor of the Altair 8800, which is considered the world's first personal computer. When Paul Allen and Bill Gates saw a computer on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1975, they contacted Ed Roberts to write software for the Altair 8800. Gates and Allen worked with MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they founded Microsoft in 1977 year In 1977, Roberts sold MITS and went to Shatat Georgia, where he studied medicine and became a doctor in a small town.

Ed Roberts is a very special person and a pioneer in the field of personal computers left us on April 1st. The following text was written today by Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen in connection with the death of Ed Roberts and published on Bill Gates' personal site .



We are very upset by the loss of our friend and old mentor, Ed Roberts, and our thoughts and prayers now with his family.

Ed was a real pioneer in the personal computer revolution, although he didn’t always get the recognition he deserved. He was an outstanding man with a great sense of humor and he always took great care of the people who worked with him, including us. Ed gave us a chance - two young guys who were interested in computers long before they came into use - and we were always grateful to him. The day our first program started working on its Altair was the beginning of many great things. We have always had a lot of memories of working with Ed in Albuquerque, at the MITS office right on Route 66 - where there were so many wonderful events that none of us could have imagined at the time.



More than anything, we will remember that Ed was a deeply compassionate man - and this manifested itself even more when he decided to spend the second part of his life enrolling in a medical school and starting to work as a doctor in a small town. Many will regard his departure as a great loss, and we are happy that we knew him.

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Posted by Bill Gates and Paul Allen

Microsoft founders