Computer History page 6
Although integrated circuits were far, far smaller than ENIAC's massive vacuum tube-based circuits, the new circuits had one thing in common with their predecessors: the circuit were designed at birth to carry out a specific set of instructions. These instructions could never change unless the circuit was completely torn down and rebuilt.
In 1968, a young California electronics manufacturing company named Intel received a call from Busicom, a large Japanese calculator maker. Busicom asked Intel to design 12 custom integrated circuits. Busicom planned to use these circuits in an advanced line of calculators.
Intel engineer Ted Hoff suggested that the functions of the 12 integrated circuits instead be combined on a single super-chip that Hoff called a microprocessor.
Busicom embraced the idea, and the world's first microprocessor was born nine months later. Intel's new 4004 microprocessor was only 1/8th of an inch wide by 1/6th of an inch long, but it had more computing power than the 50-ton behemoth known as ENIAC.
But the thing that made the 4004 especially noteworthy was the fact that it was programmable. This meant that the microprocessor could be taught how to perform new tasks using nothing more than a hand-typed set of instructions known as a program.
Because the microprocessor could be reprogrammed, it could be used to do math one day, and to alphabetize words on another! This flexibility made the 4004 very attractive to U.S. space scientists. Intel's programmable microprocessor eventually was used to provide computing power for the Jupiter 10 spacecraft, among other things.
In 1972, Intel inaugurated a new microprocessor, the 8008. The 8008 was twice as powerful as its predecessor, the 4004. Don Lancaster, a dedicated computer hobbyist, used the 8008 to create the TV typewriter, a machine that printed words on a television screen instead of on paper.
In 1974, Intel released the 8080, a slightly more powerful microprocessor than the 8008. Les Solomon, the editor of Popular Electronics magazine, understood the potential of Intel's newest microprocessor. He knew that the 8080 could be used to build an affordable and fully programmable computers with enough power to run a small business. Solomon was determined to scoop his magazine's competitors by being the first to publish plans for such a computer.
For assistance, Solomon turned to his good friend, Ed Roberts. Roberts was an Air Force lieutenant with a talent for electronics. His company, MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems), sold calculators. When Texas Instruments introduced a line of powerful calculators in 1972, Roberts was driven to the brink of financial ruin. Texas Instruments' calculators had twice the power and cost half as much as the machines MITS was trying to sell.
By January of 1974, Roberts' company was officially out of the calculator business. Working closely with Solomon, Roberts managed to build a working computer that he planned to sell for just under $500. Solomon's 12-year old daughter, a Star Trek enthusiast, named the new machine the Altair, after a one-time destination for the Star Ship Enterprise.
After completing his work on the new machine, Roberts shipped his one and only Altair to Solomon's offices. Mysteriously, the machine never reached its destination. Trusting his friend, Solomon wrote a rave review of a computer that he had never seen. At the same time, Roberts cobbled together an empty computer case and rushed it to a photographer. The Altair computer he featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics was nothing more than an empty shell.
Immediately after Solomon's article was published, electronics enthusiasts around the world clamored to own their own affordable computer. Roberts was seriously underprepared for the onslaught. He was flooded with so many thousands of orders that lengthy shipping delays ensued. No matter how hard he tried, Roberts' small company simply could not process all of the orders in a timely manner.
Many of the computers that MITS did manage to ship out failed to function. Fortunately for Roberts, his clients were technologically savvy. Most of MITS' customers didn't complain--they simply tinkered with the machines until they got them to work!
The Altair came with the ability to hold up to 256 characters of data and instructions. The machine came with none of the accoutrements we take for granted today. There were no storage devices, no monitor, and no keyboard. The operator had to repeatedly flick a bank of toggle switches on and off to generate sequences of electrical impulses. The Altair would then convert these patterns of on and off signals into data and instructions, much like a telegraph operator converts dots and dashes into words and sentences.
Communicating with the Altair by flicking switches up and down turned out to be awkward and time-consuming. Serious Altair programmers were always easy to spot--their thumbs and forefingers were usually covered with savage blisters. To make matters worse, a series of flickering lights on the front panel provided the Altair with its only means of output. Interpreting the meaning of the flashing lights was not a task for the faint of heart.
In 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates managed to get in touch with Roberts. Allen and Gates had managed to adapt an old programming language called BASIC for use with the Altair. The adaptation promised to both simplify and speed up most programming tasks. Roberts was duly impressed, and immediately hired Allen as MITS' director of software. Later that year, Gates was hired on as a part-time programmer.
By late 1976, MITS was experiencing serious difficulties. Many of its computers refused to work, and customers were complaining loudly. Gates and Allen tried to provide their boss with advice, but Roberts didn't seem to be listening. Finally, out of frustration, Allen and Gates left MITS to form their own software company, Microsoft.
Shortly thereafter, large corporations like Commodore and Tandy began eating into MITS' market, aggressively marketing small, affordable computers that soon became known as microcomputers. Although they were a bit more expensive than Roberts' machines, the Commodore and Tandy microcomputers came equipped with some fairly desirable extras--including keyboards, monitors, and permanent storage devices.
Unable to compete with his well-financed adversaries, Roberts threw in the towel at the end of 1977. He sold MITS and left for Georgia, where he enrolled in med school. Ed Roberts is now a small-town pediatrician.
