Microcomputer

The microcomputer emerged twice—first in France, then explosively in America. The French Micral of 1973 was the first commercial microprocessor-based computer, but it was the American Altair 8800 that ignited the personal computer revolution and created an industry that would reshape the world.

The adjacent possible opened when Intel released the 8008 microprocessor in 1972 and the far more capable 8080 in April 1974. Before microprocessors, computers required rooms full of discrete components. Now the central processing unit fit on a single chip, waiting for someone to build a complete system around it.

The Micral arrived first. In January 1973, the French company R2E (Réalisation d'Études Électroniques), led by André Truong Trong Thi and François Gernelle, released the Micral N—the first commercial computer built around a microprocessor (the Intel 8008). Priced at 8,500 francs, it sold to process control and scientific applications. R2E marketed approximately 90,000 units, but the machine never captured hobbyist imagination.

The revolution came from Albuquerque. Ed Roberts, founder of MITS, had built calculators until aggressive pricing wars drove him near bankruptcy. In a desperate pivot, he decided to create something impossible: a personal computer kit for hobbyists. Roberts evaluated the Intel 4004, 8008, and settled on the powerful new 8080.

The Altair 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975 (dated, but at newsstands before Christmas 1974). The caption proclaimed: 'World's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models.' Selling as a kit for $395 or assembled for $498, it shipped with just 256 bytes of RAM and no keyboard, display, or storage—only toggle switches and blinking lights. Roberts hoped to sell 200 units to break even. Within three months, he had 4,000 orders backlogged.

The cascade was immediate. Bill Gates and Paul Allen contacted Roberts with a proposal to write a BASIC interpreter—Microsoft's first commercial product, released mid-1975. Hobbyist clubs formed, most famously the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley where Steve Wozniak would demonstrate the Apple I. The industry that seemed impossible in 1973 was unavoidable by 1977.

Path dependence favored the American ecosystem. The Altair's open bus architecture (the S-100 bus) became an industry standard, enabling third-party expansion cards. MITS sold approximately 10,000 Altairs—modest by later standards, but enough to establish Ed Roberts as the 'Father of the microcomputer' and Albuquerque as its birthplace. Every personal computer that followed traces lineage to the Altair's demonstration that ordinary people would buy computers for their own use.