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The Altair 8800: The Foundation of Microsoft, Apple and the IBM PC
One of the first personal computers to gain widespread attention and popularity, the Altair 8800 was released by MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) in December, 1975, It was available complete, or in a do-it-yourself kit that allowed hobbyists to build their own.

The Altair 8800 was designed to be affordable, with a price tag of $395 for the basic kit, making it accessible to a wider range of people. It featured an Intel 8080 processor, 256 bytes of memory, and a front panel with a series of switches and lights that allowed users to input and output data. It also had a series of expansion slots allowing users to add functionality to the computer.

The Altair 8800 was not initially marketed as a personal computer, but rather as a kit for hobbyists to experiment with. However, it quickly gained popularity among enthusiasts and was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which helped to generate more interest.

The popularity of the Altair 8800 led to the creation of several companies that produced compatible hardware and software. One of the most notable of these companies was Microsoft. Bill Gates and Steve Allen developed a version of BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for the Altair 8800, making it one of the first computers to run Microsoft software.

The Altair 8800 was not without its limitations. The front panel interface was difficult to use and required users to input machine code using a series of switches, making programming a time-consuming and tedious process. The computer also had limited memory and storage capacity, which made it impractical for many commercial applications.

Despite its limitations, the Altair 8800 was an important milestone in the development of personal computers demonstrating that computers could be accessible and affordable to the average person, and it helped to create a community of enthusiasts and hobbyists who were passionate about computing. The Altair 8800 paved the way for the development of other personal computers, including the Apple II and IBM PC, which helped to popularize computing and change the world forever