6 ms·

Ed Roberts: The Secret Father of Modern Computing

81 points by gumby 3y ago

watersb 3y ago
When I first got into computers, I lived about 30 minutes from his home town. In middle school. I was reading back issues of BYTE magazine, it was all technical jargon noise, but I just kept at it until I got the hang of it. This was back when BYTE still published full source code for featured programs, and there was Steve Ciracia's Circuit Cellar for electronic schematics and timing diagrams. The computer industry seemed a different, glamorous planet from south-Georgia (not the island) slash pine swampland. And it was... but not that far from Carrollton. Dang.
jongjong 3y ago
> The bankers were dubious. Everyone knew that computers were large and expensive, the domain of big business. “The banker asked me, ‘Well, how many of these do you think you'll sell?'” Roberts remembered later. It's so weird reading this thinking that bankers used to actually consider funding such ventures. > For a second, Roberts thought that this was the end of MITS. Instead, the banker sighed and signed off on the loan. Wow, I'm green with intergenerational envy. Sounds like a parallel universe where people were not worthless cogs in a big machine.
- xwolfi 3y ago
  Oh they still do: I work in a giant bank, in Hong Kong, and you would be surprised by the diversity of people. Squeezing blue collar people via unsound consumer loans is a common misconception of what our job is (at least that's what I assume your view is?): very often we finance factory projects led by people we've worked with before, we fight our bosses, we resist corporatist apathy, and we don't always just try to get a high margin for a low effort / low quality service. I've seen true honor, sincere client relationship, difficult pricing decisions, painful loss swallowing, etc. Banks are really made of humans, and I invite you to try working in one one day: it is really interesting, and I dare say really useful to society, even if I know most people smirk when I say this...
  - jongjong 3y ago
    Interesting. I don't think such banks exist in the west. I only know it used to be that way based on what my dad told me. In my experience (having traveled around a bit to Europe and Australia), banks in most western countries are almost completely centered around mortgages to buy houses and investment properties and won't loan for anything else. Maybe they will make business loans for very high net worth individuals or big companies like large mining projects but seems very rare and I've never heard of anyone getting a loan to fund their small business.
    - xwolfi 3y ago
      My employer is headquartered west of China, in Europe, so is probably part of "the west" as you call it. Banks are absolutely not centered around mortgages (only): this is what YOUR life is centered around, the middle class is composed mostly of employees savings for their home, the main source of their wealth. It is the case in the "non-west" like in China, very much so, but is not the only business of banks. My dad had a small business in France, and all banks were ready to lend to him, no problem, with a competition on the rate. They would ask him for his business plan, discuss a bit, try to time the loan with their own need, increase the rate if it was a riskier plan. He did re-negotiation, emergency loans, growth-centric new loans, renovation loans, in several banks for over 30 years until he died last year and... one of his employees took a business loans to buy back the business for a million euros from us, his heirs. How do your bakers, dentists, auto-shop people finance their business ? It cannot be cash-only, family-only, or lying on fake mortgage applications... Maybe your country is really special ? One thing maybe... I don't think banks advertise these very much on their website or whatnot, so maybe you have the impression it doesn't exist ? Usually people with small businesses have some accountant contacts first, then start having contacts in every bank's business loan division and they just meet directly to discuss. At least that's how my dad always seemed to do, when he did his "bank tours" to finance a new project.
      - anonymousDan 3y ago
        Are you then personally liable for the loans? Or are they made against the business assets? In other words, if you fail to repay the loan will you typically lose your house?
musicale 3y ago
Ed Roberts may not be a household name (like Bill Gates or Microsoft), but the Altair is certainly well-known. It was also preceded by some notable and influential machines such as the Xerox Alto. CP/M was developed for an intel machine which also preceded the Altair.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  re cp/m, what machine was that?
  - st_goliath 3y ago
    It took me roughly 5 seconds to go to Wikipedia, type "CP/M" into the search bar, scroll down to "History", where I found a link to an article about the Intel Intellec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellec The second sentence in that article says: > The Intellec computers were among the first microcomputers ever sold, predating the Altair 8800 by at least two years.
    - zabzonk 3y ago
      well done - your google search skills certainly exceed mine
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - markhahn 3y ago
      interesting, and indeed I'd never heard of them. of course, there's also the IMSAI. I personally lusted after the Sol (real wood sides!) Intellec seems to have been missing from the hobbyist headspace, though, which was critical for that early phase of the industry - not to mention that kits were huge in those days. Adults with a couple grand (real money in those days) to blow on a mostly-impractical but cool toy...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Yet again an Air Force officer leading the way in unsung fashion in technology and innovation! Proud to see it.
dreamcompiler 3y ago
The Air Force base mentioned in the article is Kirtland, not Kirkland. It's a common mistake. If you're visiting Albuquerque you can see the plaque marking the spot where Microsoft started: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13927 https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13927
george-in-sd 3y ago
In the documentary Triumph of the Nerds they show how to write a program with the Altair. No keyboard, no monitor - a truly humble machine! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSRmKKiosQ&t=1224 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSRmKKiosQ&t=1224
- timbit42 3y ago
  The Tech Time Traveler channel has a lot of interesting 70's vintage computer stuff including this more detailed video from 2 days ago on programming the Altair 8800 including Kill the Bit and The Fool on the Hill: https://youtu.be/CZgD_bvPm0k&t=1594 https://youtu.be/CZgD_bvPm0k&t=1594
chrisbrandow 3y ago
I did not know the post-MIYS part of his life. Fascinating!
spit2wind 3y ago
The article says, > Allen had even arranged for Roberts to be interviewed as part of a computer history project for high school students. I'm not in a place where I can listen, but these seem likely candidates for these interviews: - https://archive.org/details/EdRobertsInterview1995 https://archive.org/details/EdRobertsInterview1995 - https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2015/03/102740010-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... - https://archive.org/details/RememberingEdRobertsTheFatherOfThePersonalComputer https://archive.org/details/RememberingEdRobertsTheFatherOfT...
Mikhail_K 3y ago
So, Microsoft were cunts from the day 0. Why am I not surprised?
- amelius 3y ago
  It's not specific for Microsoft.
- e40 3y ago
  Really just Gates, though. This is the money quote to show what type of person Roberts was > “The most important thing is to be honorable, and kind of work from there,” he replied. He spoke about the various times MITS had come close to failure, only to be saved by the blind trust placed in him by others. “If you have integrity, that makes up for a lot of things. A lot of inadequacies. I never lied to anyone. I always told them exactly what the situation was and what we could do to get out of it. That’s true for life in general as well. Don’t lie to yourself.” Such a sharp contrast to Gates’ behavior.
  - amelius 3y ago
    Gates still allowed Microsoft Research to publish an enormous amount of useful research. Something that I don't see at that scale at e.g. Apple. He is just a very clever businessman.
    - gumby 3y ago
      He is, but not a nice person, which continues to come through despite spending his money trying to whitewash his reputation.
      - musicale 3y ago
        Captains of industry (including the Gateses, Jobses, and Musks of this world) might not be nice people necessarily (and often aren't), but I still appreciate their contributions. Microsoft's products from the 1970s and 1980s (notably BASIC, Word and Excel) were certainly influential. Windows delivered a Mac-style GUI for cheap PCs. MSR as noted has produced all sorts of good research.
mellosouls 3y ago
For people interested in this era and afterwards, Halt and Catch Fire is worth checking out as a series that attempts to capture some of the spirit of the time: https://imdb.com/title/tt2543312/ https://imdb.com/title/tt2543312/
lincpa 3y ago
[dead]

81 points by gumby 3y ago

When I first got into computers, I lived about 30 minutes from his home town. In middle school. I was reading back issues of BYTE magazine, it was all technical jargon noise, but I just kept at it until I got the hang of it. This was back when BYTE still published full source code for featured programs, and there was Steve Ciracia's Circuit Cellar for electronic schematics and timing diagrams. The computer industry seemed a different, glamorous planet from south-Georgia (not the island) slash pine swampland. And it was... but not that far from Carrollton. Dang.

jongjong 3y ago

> The bankers were dubious. Everyone knew that computers were large and expensive, the domain of big business. “The banker asked me, ‘Well, how many of these do you think you'll sell?'” Roberts remembered later. It's so weird reading this thinking that bankers used to actually consider funding such ventures. > For a second, Roberts thought that this was the end of MITS. Instead, the banker sighed and signed off on the loan. Wow, I'm green with intergenerational envy. Sounds like a parallel universe where people were not worthless cogs in a big machine.

xwolfi 3y ago
Oh they still do: I work in a giant bank, in Hong Kong, and you would be surprised by the diversity of people. Squeezing blue collar people via unsound consumer loans is a common misconception of what our job is (at least that's what I assume your view is?): very often we finance factory projects led by people we've worked with before, we fight our bosses, we resist corporatist apathy, and we don't always just try to get a high margin for a low effort / low quality service. I've seen true honor, sincere client relationship, difficult pricing decisions, painful loss swallowing, etc. Banks are really made of humans, and I invite you to try working in one one day: it is really interesting, and I dare say really useful to society, even if I know most people smirk when I say this...
- jongjong 3y ago
  Interesting. I don't think such banks exist in the west. I only know it used to be that way based on what my dad told me. In my experience (having traveled around a bit to Europe and Australia), banks in most western countries are almost completely centered around mortgages to buy houses and investment properties and won't loan for anything else. Maybe they will make business loans for very high net worth individuals or big companies like large mining projects but seems very rare and I've never heard of anyone getting a loan to fund their small business.
  - xwolfi 3y ago
    My employer is headquartered west of China, in Europe, so is probably part of "the west" as you call it. Banks are absolutely not centered around mortgages (only): this is what YOUR life is centered around, the middle class is composed mostly of employees savings for their home, the main source of their wealth. It is the case in the "non-west" like in China, very much so, but is not the only business of banks. My dad had a small business in France, and all banks were ready to lend to him, no problem, with a competition on the rate. They would ask him for his business plan, discuss a bit, try to time the loan with their own need, increase the rate if it was a riskier plan. He did re-negotiation, emergency loans, growth-centric new loans, renovation loans, in several banks for over 30 years until he died last year and... one of his employees took a business loans to buy back the business for a million euros from us, his heirs. How do your bakers, dentists, auto-shop people finance their business ? It cannot be cash-only, family-only, or lying on fake mortgage applications... Maybe your country is really special ? One thing maybe... I don't think banks advertise these very much on their website or whatnot, so maybe you have the impression it doesn't exist ? Usually people with small businesses have some accountant contacts first, then start having contacts in every bank's business loan division and they just meet directly to discuss. At least that's how my dad always seemed to do, when he did his "bank tours" to finance a new project.
    - anonymousDan 3y ago
      Are you then personally liable for the loans? Or are they made against the business assets? In other words, if you fail to repay the loan will you typically lose your house?

musicale 3y ago

Ed Roberts may not be a household name (like Bill Gates or Microsoft), but the Altair is certainly well-known. It was also preceded by some notable and influential machines such as the Xerox Alto. CP/M was developed for an intel machine which also preceded the Altair.

zabzonk 3y ago
re cp/m, what machine was that?
- st_goliath 3y ago
  It took me roughly 5 seconds to go to Wikipedia, type "CP/M" into the search bar, scroll down to "History", where I found a link to an article about the Intel Intellec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellec The second sentence in that article says: > The Intellec computers were among the first microcomputers ever sold, predating the Altair 8800 by at least two years.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    well done - your google search skills certainly exceed mine
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - markhahn 3y ago
    interesting, and indeed I'd never heard of them. of course, there's also the IMSAI. I personally lusted after the Sol (real wood sides!) Intellec seems to have been missing from the hobbyist headspace, though, which was critical for that early phase of the industry - not to mention that kits were huge in those days. Adults with a couple grand (real money in those days) to blow on a mostly-impractical but cool toy...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Yet again an Air Force officer leading the way in unsung fashion in technology and innovation! Proud to see it.

dreamcompiler 3y ago

The Air Force base mentioned in the article is Kirtland, not Kirkland. It's a common mistake. If you're visiting Albuquerque you can see the plaque marking the spot where Microsoft started: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13927 https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13927

george-in-sd 3y ago

In the documentary Triumph of the Nerds they show how to write a program with the Altair. No keyboard, no monitor - a truly humble machine! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSRmKKiosQ&t=1224 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSRmKKiosQ&t=1224

timbit42 3y ago
The Tech Time Traveler channel has a lot of interesting 70's vintage computer stuff including this more detailed video from 2 days ago on programming the Altair 8800 including Kill the Bit and The Fool on the Hill: https://youtu.be/CZgD_bvPm0k&t=1594 https://youtu.be/CZgD_bvPm0k&t=1594

chrisbrandow 3y ago

I did not know the post-MIYS part of his life. Fascinating!

spit2wind 3y ago

The article says, > Allen had even arranged for Roberts to be interviewed as part of a computer history project for high school students. I'm not in a place where I can listen, but these seem likely candidates for these interviews: - https://archive.org/details/EdRobertsInterview1995 https://archive.org/details/EdRobertsInterview1995 - https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2015/03/102740010-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... - https://archive.org/details/RememberingEdRobertsTheFatherOfThePersonalComputer https://archive.org/details/RememberingEdRobertsTheFatherOfT...

Mikhail_K 3y ago

So, Microsoft were cunts from the day 0. Why am I not surprised?

amelius 3y ago
It's not specific for Microsoft.
e40 3y ago
Really just Gates, though. This is the money quote to show what type of person Roberts was > “The most important thing is to be honorable, and kind of work from there,” he replied. He spoke about the various times MITS had come close to failure, only to be saved by the blind trust placed in him by others. “If you have integrity, that makes up for a lot of things. A lot of inadequacies. I never lied to anyone. I always told them exactly what the situation was and what we could do to get out of it. That’s true for life in general as well. Don’t lie to yourself.” Such a sharp contrast to Gates’ behavior.
- amelius 3y ago
  Gates still allowed Microsoft Research to publish an enormous amount of useful research. Something that I don't see at that scale at e.g. Apple. He is just a very clever businessman.
  - gumby 3y ago
    He is, but not a nice person, which continues to come through despite spending his money trying to whitewash his reputation.
    - musicale 3y ago
      Captains of industry (including the Gateses, Jobses, and Musks of this world) might not be nice people necessarily (and often aren't), but I still appreciate their contributions. Microsoft's products from the 1970s and 1980s (notably BASIC, Word and Excel) were certainly influential. Windows delivered a Mac-style GUI for cheap PCs. MSR as noted has produced all sorts of good research.

mellosouls 3y ago

For people interested in this era and afterwards, Halt and Catch Fire is worth checking out as a series that attempts to capture some of the spirit of the time: https://imdb.com/title/tt2543312/ https://imdb.com/title/tt2543312/

lincpa 3y ago

[dead]