Ed Roberts, the founder of a company called MITS, foresaw the start of the microcomputer revolution. He saw a computer that could be assembled from a kit. In 1974, MITS introduced one of the first microcomputers available to the general public, the Altair 8800. The computer came unassembled for $397 or fully assembled for $498. It used the Intel 80808-bit microprocessor and had only 1,024 bytes (1 K) of memory. The Altair 8800 was featured in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and created so much interest that the company received over 5,000 orders. The overwhelming response indicated that the market for microcomputers was well worth pursuing.
In 1976, not long after the introduction of the Altair 8800, Stephen Wozniak, an employee of Hewlett-Packard, finished building a small, easy-to-use computer. His computer, the Apple I, used the MOS 6502 microprocessor which, at $20, was inexpensive enough to be used for home computers. Steven Jobs, a friend of Wozniak's and a former Hewlett-Packard employee, persuaded Wozniak to leave Hewlett-Packard and start a business with him. The two men raised $1,300 and began building Apple computers. Their first commercial microcomputer, the Apple II, was a remarkable success (see picture below).
Since then, the company has produced a number of microcomputers, including the Apple II Plus, lIe, lIc, IIGS, the Apple III, and the Macintosh and Macintosh II families.
Also in 1976, Commodore Business Machines, headed by Jack Tramiel, acquired MOS Technology, the semiconductor manufacturer that had developed the 6502 microprocessor. With additional financing supplied by Commodore, the 6502 microprocessor was built into the Commodore PET microcomputer. In 1977, the PET was introduced at an electronics show. Tramiel also sold the 6502 microprocessor to Apple and Atari. Later, Commodore developed the VIC 20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and Amiga microcomputers.
A year later, in 1977, the chairman of Tandy Corporation, John Roach, was busy persuading Tandy president, Charles Tandy, to manufacture a microcomputer and market it through the Radio Shack stores that Tandy had bought in 1963. Roach had the foresight and marketing skill to create a situation where, for the first time, a person could walk into a retail store and purchase a low-priced personal computer. The TRS-80 and Tandy families of microcomputers made Radio Shack and Tandy Corporation a driving force in the microcomputer industry (see picture below).
IBM entered the microcomputer race in 1981. The IBM Personal Computer, or PC, quickly became the standard in small business computers. It used the Intel 8086 microprocessor which could process 16 bits of data at a time. The success of the IBM PC prompted other microcomputer manufacturers to develop 16-bit microcomputers. Since then, IBM has introduced a number of microcomputers, including the IBM PCjr, IBM PC-XT, IBM PC-AT, and the IBM PS/2 family.