First Personal Computer
The Altair 8800 was sold as a kit, sparking the personal computer revolution
January 01, 1975
A Computer You Could Buy
In January 1975, Popular Electronics magazine ran a cover story on the Altair 8800 — a computer kit that hobbyists could buy for $397 and assemble at home. It had no screen, no keyboard, and no software. You programmed it by flipping switches and read the output from blinking lights. It could barely do anything useful. But it demonstrated that a computer could be affordable enough for individuals to own, and the response was overwhelming — MITS, the manufacturer, was flooded with orders.
Who It Inspired
Two people who read that magazine cover were 19-year-old Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen. They called MITS and offered to write a programming language for the Altair. They had not written it yet — or even seen an Altair — but they promised it anyway. Their BASIC interpreter worked, and Gates and Allen founded Microsoft to sell it. In a garage in California, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were also inspired to build the Apple computer.
The Revolution It Started
The Altair itself was quickly obsolete, replaced by the Apple II, the IBM PC, and eventually the machines we use today. But January 1975 is where the personal computing revolution started — the moment a computer stopped being a room-sized machine operated by specialists and started being something a person could own. The date calculator shows just how recently computers entered ordinary life.