Barney's Blog

Blog archive

We'll Miss You Ed Roberts

My IT director, the awesome Erik Lindgren, wrote me recently about the death of Ed Roberts who created the first ever PC -- the Altair, and propelled Microsoft into the stratosphere with a rewrite of Basic. Oh, and he later became a medical doctor too!

Bill Gates never forgot the pioneer who made Microsoft what it is, so on Bill's personal Web site he and Paul Allen penned a touching tribute. Here's a quick excerpt:

 "Ed was truly a pioneer in the personal computer revolution, and didn't always get the recognition he deserved. He was an intense man with a great sense of humor, and he always cared deeply about the people who worked for him, including us. Ed was willing to take a chance on us -- two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace -- and we have always been grateful to him. The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things. We will always have many fond memories of working with Ed in Albuquerque, in the MITS office right on Route 66 -- where so many exciting things happened that none of us could have imagined back then."

Who is your computer hero? Nominations readily accepted at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on April 21, 2010


Featured

  • Microsoft Dismantles RedVDS Cybercrime Marketplace Linked to $40M in Phishing Fraud

    In a coordinated action spanning the United States and the United Kingdom, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) and international law enforcement collaborators have taken down RedVDS, a subscription based cybercrime platform tied to an estimated $40 million in fraud losses in the U.S. since March 2025.

  • Sound Wave Illustration

    CrowdStrike's Acquisition of SGNL Aims to Strengthen Identity Security

    CrowdStrike signs definitive agreement to purchase SGNL, an identity security specialist, in a deal valued at about $740 million.

  • Microsoft Acquires Osmos, Automating Data Engineering inside Fabric

    In a strategic move to reduce time-consuming manual data preparation, Microsoft has acquired Seattle-based startup Osmos, specializing in agentic AI for data engineering.

  • Linux Foundation Unites Major Tech Firms to Launch Agentic AI Foundation

    The Linux Foundation today announced the creation of a new collaborative initiative — the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) — bringing together major AI and cloud players such as Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and other major tech companies.