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Ed Roberts

Ed Roberts

AKA Henry Edward Roberts

Born: 13-Sep-1941
Birthplace: Miami, FL
Died: 1-Apr-2010
Location of death: Macon, GA
Cause of death: Pneumonia

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Inventor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Inventor of the Altair computer

Military service: USAF

Pioneer of the personal computer, Ed Roberts co-founded Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) while an Air Force officer stationed in Albuquerque in the 1960s. The company's first products included calculators and equipment for model rocketry, but its fortunes changed with the development of the Altair 8800 in 1974. Considered the first personal computer, the Altair appealed to many home computing hobbyists, among them Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who moved to Albuquerque in order to port the BASIC programming language to the new platform, and formed the company Microsoft to market their software. Roberts sold off his interest in MITS in 1977, on the condition that he not develop computing technology for five years. He later went to medical school and found a second career as a doctor outside Macon, Georgia.

Father: Henry Melvin Roberts (appliance repairman)
Mother: Edna Wilcher Roberts (nurse)
Wife: Donna Mauldin Roberts (div.)
Wife: Joan C. Roberts (div.)
Wife: Rosa Roberts
Son: John David Roberts
Son: Martin Roberts
Son: Edward Roberts
Son: Clark Roberts
Daughter: Dawn Roberts

Medical School: MD, Mercer University (1986)

MITS Co-Founder (1969-1977)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (12-Jun-1996) · Himself

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