Developer of early personal computer dies

ATLANTA -- Dr. Henry Edward Roberts, the developer of an early personal computer that inspired Bill Gates to found Microsoft, died Thursday in Georgia. He was 68.

Son David Roberts tells The Associated Press his father died after several months battling pneumonia.

The man better known as Ed Roberts developed and marketed the MITS Altair 8800 in the 1970s. The build-it-yourself kit was operated by switches and had no display screen, but it inspired Gates and childhood friend Paul Allen to found Microsoft in 1975 after they saw an article about it in Popular Electronics.

They located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be based near MITS, or Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems.

David Roberts said Gates, who had remained close to his father over the years, visited Friday after hearing he was ill.

Ed Roberts once described his efforts to bring the world a personal computer as an "almost megalomaniac kind of scheme" that he pursued out of youthful ambition.

"But at that time you know we just lacked the, eh, the benefits of age and experience," Roberts said on a program called "Triumph of the Nerds" that aired on PBS in 1996. "We didn't know we couldn't do it."