Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975. Ed Roberts and Forrest Mims founded MITS in December 1969 to produce miniaturized telemetry modules for model rockets such as a roll rate sensor. In 1971, Roberts redirected the company into the electronic calculator market and the MITS 816 desktop calculator kit was featured on the November 1971 cover of Popular Electronics. The calculators were very successful and sales topped one million dollars in 1973. A brutal calculator price war left the company deeply in debt by 1974. Roberts then developed the first commercially successful microcomputer, the Altair 8800, which was featured on the January 1975 cover of Popular Electronics. Hobbyists flooded MITS with orders for the $397 computer kit. Paul Allen and Bill Gates saw the magazine and began writing software for the Altair, later called Altair BASIC. They moved to Albuquerque to work for MITS and in July 1975 started Microsoft. MITS's annual sales had reached$6 million by 1977 when they were acquired by Pertec Computer. The operations were soon merged into the larger company and the MITS brand disappeared. Roberts retired to Georgia where he studied medicine and became a small town medical doctor. Henry Edward Roberts studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Miami before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1962. He soon became an electronics instructor at the Cryptographic Equipment Maintenance School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. To augment his meager enlisted man's pay, Roberts worked on several off-duty projects and even set up a one-man company, Reliance Engineering. The most notable job was to create the electronics that animated the Christmas characters in the window display of Joske's department store in San Antonio. In 1965, he was selected for an Air Force program to complete his college degree, and became a commissioned officer.