[HN Gopher] Ed Roberts created the personal computer industry (2...
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Ed Roberts created the personal computer industry (2023)
Author : rbanffy
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-10-30 11:33 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (every.to)
(TXT) w3m dump (every.to)
| ksp-atlas wrote:
| > The media at the time was talking excitedly about the launch of
| Microsoft Windows Vista and the new MacBook Pro.
|
| Wouldn't Windows 7 have been the latest Windows at the time, or
| is this a joke calling Windows 7 just another version of Vista?
| fm2606 wrote:
| Wasn't Windows 7 a rebranding of Vista with some improvements,
| maybe just lipstick on a pig but still, I really don't know.
|
| I do know I liked Win 7 way better than Vista.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "some improvements" is one of the best understatements.
|
| It certainly was more than cosmetic, more like a complete
| makeover after incarceration in a health and wellness camp
| for a year
| bhouston wrote:
| The package was lost in the mail? Or did he not actually finish
| the computer on time and this was a dog ate the homework type
| excuse? Depends on the degree to which he was a hustler I guess.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's pretty obvious from the accounts of the partners he worked
| with that he was a straight forward guy who did the opposite of
| what you suggest. If you read the story, he got a detail wrong,
| it wasn't due to an immediate bankruptcy of the railway, but a
| strike that eventually let to the bankruptcy of the railway
| operator. In any case, the computer did not get to its
| destination in time. We don't know if it ever got there or not
| as it had become irrelevant to the story.
| bhouston wrote:
| When your company is running out of money and this is the
| only thing that can save you, you may do desperate things.
|
| The reason it stood out was that he was flying himself to the
| meeting, so why did he ship the package separately if it was
| so important?
|
| Anyhow it is unprovable so we can go with his reputation.
| mc32 wrote:
| His history shows that he did not compromise his integrity
| to gain a momentary advantage, so I doubt he'd have
| succumbed in that instance. He understood those things have
| a tendency to backfire. It's a different world now. That
| was towards the end of the era where deals could be done
| with a handshake.
| fallingsquirrel wrote:
| > The reason it stood out was that he was flying himself to
| the meeting, so why did he ship the package separately if
| it was so important?
|
| It wasn't an iPhone you can just stick in your pocket. The
| thing weighed almost 150 lbs and looked something like
| this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800
|
| I wouldn't want to be seen in an airport with the 3 other
| people you'd need carrying that thing around.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Nit: Railway Express Agency was intimately connected with
| railroad infrastructure, but it was not actually a railway.
| It was, essentially, FedEx, only using railways for transport
| instead of their own planes.
| svat wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800
|
| > It was the first commercially successful personal computer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_(computer_engineer)
|
| > He is most often known as "the father of the personal
| computer."
|
| (This looks like a good article/story that is not found on
| Wikipedia; just sharing these links for anyone who wants an
| overview / know what it is about, before diving into the story.)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Wow, the price list at the bottom of that Altair article: $439
| for the computer (in kit form), $262 for the 4K word memory
| board, $124 for the serial teletype board, and _$1500_ for the
| teletype terminal. The terminal is twice as much as the rest
| put together!
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Musical tribute: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
| static/2007/06/a_sign_o...
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| As sung by Frank Hayes:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMS6G83NqFQ
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Right, but bear in mind that the "terminal" here is a
| teletype - basically a printer with a keyboard, as shown in
| the picture.
|
| If you wanted a cheaper keyboard + display option, there was
| always Don Lancaster's "TV Typewriter" kit.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Typewriter
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Every appearance of the word "Kirkland" here should be
| "Kirtland." We're talking about the Air Force base in
| Albuquerque, not Costco.
| kerblang wrote:
| TIL after hearing the name a gazillion times that it's actually
| spelled with a "t". Apparently I am not alone...
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Not hardly!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-glottalization
|
| I am fortunate to have smart friends who introduced me to
| this not even a month ago.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Maybe Roberts and the Altair are becoming obscure to younger
| people, but in the traditional story of the personal computer
| neither he nor the Altair were "secret" or obscure. As the
| article mentions, Microsoft was founded by Gates and Allen to
| sell a BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, that's pretty bad linkbait. We've replaced the title with
| the subtitle above.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2023)
|
| Some more discussion then:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38680698
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Ed Roberts: The Secret Father of Modern Computing_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38680698 - Dec 2023 (37
| comments)
|
| _Interview with the "Father of the PC" Ed Roberts in the early
| 2000's [video]_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38655639
| - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
|
| _Why Gates is richer than Allen - an Ed Roberts story_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1246540 - April 2010 (1
| comment)
|
| _Altair developer Ed Roberts dies in Ga._ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1235671 - April 2010 (13
| comments)
| LordLotherak wrote:
| I'd suggest reading the history of Digital Research, Inc. and
| Gary Kildall to get a more rounded perspective on this story.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| I don't know how many HN folk are familiar with the Altair 8800
| and how primitive the basic machine was. No keyboard or display -
| just a box with a control panel with blinken lights and binary
| toggle switches to enter data.
|
| The basic machine didn't even have a boot ROM, or an operating
| system, so you would enter your boot code one byte at a time by
| using those toggle switches. A common add-on device to boot from
| would be a paper tape reader - e.g. with Microsoft BASIC on it.
|
| Here's a video of someone entering boot code.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zbtNImG2NE
| dtagames wrote:
| I saw the Altair 8800 on the cover of BYTE magazine in a
| newsstand in LA as a child and begged my grandparents for a copy.
| Reading that magazine changed my life and started my journey into
| programming.
| cxr wrote:
| The January 1977 issue:
| <https://www.digibarn.com/collections/mags/byte-
| covers/BYTE-1...>
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Forrest Mims mentioned in the article was recently featured in an
| HN submission.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| I am a HUGE fan of the book "Fire In The Valley: The Making of
| the Personal Computer."
|
| I am an elder-millennial and it filled in a lot of gaps in the
| history of personal computing that I was too young to learn.
|
| Link: https://amzn.to/40vlUkN
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| You might like The Dream Machine then, too!
| themadturk wrote:
| Also _Hackers_ by Stephen Levy.
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