The future of the Personal Computer (PC) had past to the hobbyists, and Altair 8800, furnished by Edward Roberts' company MITS, was a big seller in 1971. It offered 65,000 8 bit words of memory, 256 inputs and outputs simultaneously with bus line expansion. No software was offered, so all entries were bit by bit in machine code via toggle switches. A game was sold later.

What Altair needed was more memory, peripherals, but most of all a BASIC interpreter as an internal program. Paul Allen, a programmer working near Boston, bought a copy of Popular Electronics January issue which had publicized the Altair and visited his friend Bill Gates, a Harvard freshman. Allen and Gates telephoned Roberts with an offer to write a BASIC interpreter for Altair. Roberts encouraged them and 6 weeks later Allen flew to Albuquerque with the interpreter which Roberts bought. Gates dropped out of Harvard and later Gates and Allen established the Microsoft Corporation in Bellevue, Washington.

MITS then offered a 4K memory board for $150 but the first boards were unreliable, and the competition of 30 personal Computer companies were springing up with more sophisticated models. Roberts decided to sell out to Pertec Computer Corporation for $6.5 million in their stock. Pertec made discs and tape drives for minicomputers and mainframes. By 1979, however, MIMS could no longer compete and went bankrupt.

The Altair inspired many hobbyists to design their own computers including an unconventional self-taught engineer, Stephen W. Wozniak. "Woz", son of a satellite guidance system designer lived in Sunnydale, California. During high school years, he read computer manuals and programming textbooks, and at 13 built a transistorized calculator that won first prize at a science fair. in the Bay Area. Woz found minicomputers, admired their low costs, compactness and accessibility. He wanted to be a computer engineer.

Woz fell in love with snow in Colorado and entered the University of Colorado, then transferred to De Anza College in Cupertine, California. He left school to work as a computer programmer for a small company, and next became an engineer in the calculator division of Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto. Why study computers when you could make a living designing them?

In the summer of 1971, Woz met a quiet , intense long-haired teenager , Steven P. Jobs and the two became good friends. Like Woz, Jobs was an electronic hobbyist and a student at Woz's old alma mater, Homestead High School in Cupertino. The two joined on an electronic gadget that emitted tones to enable free phone calls to be made. These sold for $40 to $150 to friends but were illegal.

Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon where he read about Eastern religions and became a vegetarian. Returning home, he got a job as a video game designer for Altair. Woz and Jobs would meet in the evenings to play the Altair's video games. With enough money, he traveled to India until the money was gone.

Woz would build his own personal computer with many tips from Jobs and try to interest Hewlett-Packard to manufacture his invention. H-P declined, thinking no attractive market existed. Woz and Jobs would go it alone to found the Apple Computer Company.