fire in the valley by freiberger and swaine

The following excerpts are from the new edition of Fire In The Valley --

EXCERPT ONE * Development of the Microprocessor

EXCERPT TWO * The Transistor and the Nobel Prize

EXCERPT THREE * DEC and Employee Desires

EXCERPT FOUR * The First Hobbyist Personal Computer

ED ROBERTS AND THE MITS ALTAIR
It's hard to argue about the importance of Ed Roberts and the MITS Altair, a hobbyist computer that set the stage for Apple and the rest. Roberts is also the man who hired Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and pioneered many facets of the industry:

Ed Roberts Ed Roberts was still worried about his investment even as the first orders came rolling in. But within a week, it was clear that whatever problems MITS would face in the immediate future, bank foreclosure would not be one of them. In just a two-week period, Roberts's tiny staff had opened hundreds of envelopes and read with giddy excitement orders for all the computers they had ever hoped to sell. Within a month, MITS had gone from one of their bank's biggest debtors to a fiscal hero. MITS's bank balance went from $400,000 in the red to $250,000 in the black in a few weeks. Just processing the orders seemed to be a full-time job for everyone.

No one had realized just how primed the market was for a personal computer. The January issue of Popular Electronics signaled to thousands of electronics hobbyists, programmers, and other technophiles that the era of the personal computer had finally arrived. Even those who didn't send in checks saw the Altair article as a sign that they could now have their own computers. The Altair was the fruit of a technological revolution that dropped straight into the hands of a hungry population. They went crazy for it. The Altair 8800

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Fire in the Valley by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine


Ed Roberts	Ed Roberts was still worried about his investment even as the first orders came rolling in. But within a week, it was clear that whatever problems MITS would face in the immediate future, bank foreclosure would not be one of them. In just a two-week period, Roberts's tiny staff had opened hundreds of envelopes and read with giddy excitement orders for all the computers they had ever hoped to sell. Within a month, MITS had gone from one of their bank's biggest debtors to a fiscal hero. MITS's bank balance went from $400,000 in the red to $250,000 in the black in a few weeks. Just processing the orders seemed to be a full-time job for everyone.
No one had realized just how primed the market was for a personal computer. The January issue of Popular Electronics signaled to thousands of electronics hobbyists, programmers, and other technophiles that the era of the personal computer had finally arrived. Even those who didn't send in checks saw the Altair article as a sign that they could now have their own computers. The Altair was the fruit of a technological revolution that dropped straight into the hands of a hungry population. They went crazy for it.		The Altair 8800