Chapter 2
The Voyage to Altair

The personal-computer revolution came from a company started in a garage, but not the company and not the garage that most people know about. By the early 1970s the desire among engineers and electronics hobbyists to own their own computers was like the pressure in a champagne bottle. And when Ed Roberts and his unlikely company, MITS, popped the cork, the party began. MITS launched a personal-computer industry, complete with stores, publications, conferences, user groups, software piracy, and debates over open vs. closed standards. Virtually the whole history of the personal computer appeared in miniature at MITS, where Bill Gates said, “every idea was half executed.”