Mits Altair 8800

The MITS ALtair was a machine built by a failing company that sparked the craze of personal computers. The Altair was developed in 1975 by micro instrumentation systems. MITS was struggling because the wildly sucessful texas instruments made a bigge and better calculator chip which caused MITS to lose most of its profit. Ed Roeberts bought out his partners and MIts gained from the construction of test instruments. Roberts developed the ALtair and was advertized in Popular Electronics magazine. It was wildly successful. An interesting part of the construction was the computers code was the first product developed by the future microsoft. Microsoft in the eighties leaptpast MITS and Mits went down hill from there. Roberts eventually had to sell the company to PErtec and MIts ceased to exist along with the ALtair. Over 5000 units were sold and although it started the era of the Pc, it was unable to keep up with the demand and was soon outdated. The Altair was sold in kits which hobbyists could construct. The Altair was monumental to the developed of computers for two reasons, it jump started Microsoft and also it launched interest in computers.