〔編譯羅彥傑／綜合二日外電報導〕美國早期個人電腦開發者、激勵比爾蓋茲創辦微軟公司的「個人電腦之父」亨利．艾德華．羅伯茲，一日因肺炎病逝於喬治亞州的一間醫院，享年六十八歲。

發明MITS Altair 8800電腦

羅伯茲在一九七○年代中期，利用當時最尖端的英特爾8080處理器發明了MITS Altair 8800電腦，這台價值三百九十五美元（換算今日價格約一千美元）的機器宣告了家用電腦時代的來臨。《大眾電子》雜誌刊登一篇文章，介紹MITS Altair 8800。蓋茲及其童年玩伴保羅艾倫透過該雜誌封面目睹這台電腦後，主動接觸羅伯茲，並提議幫忙撰寫軟體。這套程式稱為Altair-Basic，也是微軟開山奠基之作。

激勵比爾蓋茲

蓋茲與艾倫在聲明中說：「我們只是在電腦普及前對電腦有興趣的兩個小夥子，但羅伯茲願意給我們一個機會，我們一直對他心懷感激。我們未經測試的第一個軟體用在他的Altair那一天，也是許多偉大事物的開端。」

退休後重返校園 成為內科醫生

羅伯茲在一九七七年賣掉他創立的公司後退隱田園，之後又進入醫學院就讀成為內科醫生。他的兒子說，羅伯茲從未失去對現代科技的興趣，即使在病榻，仍念念不忘要把玩蘋果新出的iPad。

Software

Altair BASIC

Around this time Roberts received a letter from a Seattle company asking if he would be interested in buying its BASIC programming language for the machine. He called the company and reached a private home, where no one had heard of anything like BASIC. In fact the letter had been sent by Bill Gates and Paul Allen from the Boston area, and they had no BASIC yet to offer. When they called Roberts to follow up on the letter he expressed his interest, and the two started work on their BASIC interpreter using a self-made simulator for the 8080 on a PDP-10 minicomputer. They figured they had 30 days before someone else beat them to the punch, and once they had a version working on the simulator, Allen flew to Albuquerque to deliver the program, Altair BASIC (aka MITS 4K BASIC), on a paper tape. The first time it was run, it displayed "Altair Basic," then crashed, but that was enough for them to join; the next day, they brought in a new paper tape and it ran. The first program ever typed in was "10 print 2+2" and after typing "run" it typed back the correct answer: "4" Gates soon joined Allen and formed Microsoft, then spelled "Micro-Soft".

----

[轉貼] http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/chamberplus-taiwan/article?mid=1858&prev=1864&next=1857

當初這兩位小伙子Gates 及Allen 寫信給這位仁兄時，其實他們的BASIC 也還沒搞定。

好笑的是：當第一次跑出Altair BASIC 之後，就當機了...是不是就變成他們產品往後的標準流程？

然後，第一個跑出來的程式就只有一行 :

10 print 2+2   

 run 

[當答案是 4 時。他們就決定要成立公司：稱之為Micro-soft 。

宜: 看到這段BASIC , 想起我的 PC第一次接觸 是小教授2號 從學BASIC 開始,  玩卡帶錄音機載入式的電玩帶, 玩APPLE][ ,Z80卡, CP/M系統, APPLE相關軟硬體 , 進入16bit PC/XT/AT , PC/MS DOS, EMM386, Windows 1.0 , OS/2  VB for DOS,  從此無止盡 ... ^_^ ]

這個故事就已經告訴我們整個產業一開始就決定了：軟體未來的價值是遠大於硬體本身的價值。

因為這兩位小伙子的公司，是遠比這位搞硬體的前輩有名多了。

那喜歡搞硬體代工的台灣高科技廠商，就可以知道為什麼我們會這麼辛苦的道理吧！

------------------------