Ed Roberts, a pioneer in the personal computer industry, died today at age 68 after a bout with pneumonia.
According to an obituary on TechFlash, Roberts created the early MITS Altair 8800 computer, which inspired Paul Allen and Bill Gates to launch an early version of BASIC and thus giving birth to Microsoft.
What does this have to do with Route 66? All of this pioneering PC work happened in Albuquerque, right off Central Avenue (aka Route 66). In fact, a statement by Microsoft’s co-founders refers directly to this:
“The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things. We will always have many fond memories of working with Ed in Albuquerque, in the MITS office right on Route 66 – where so many exciting things happened that none of us could have imagined back then.”
You can read about Microsoft’s old digs in Albuquerque here.
According to the statement, Roberts went to medical school and became a country doctor in the second half of his career.