H. Edward Roberts

New York, April 3: Not many people in the computer world remembered H. Edward Roberts, not after he walked away from the industry more than three decades ago to become a country doctor in Georgia.

Bill Gates remembered him, though. As Roberts lay dying last week in a hospital in Macon, Georgia, suffering from pneumonia, Gates flew down to be at his bedside.

Gates knew what many had forgotten: that Roberts had made an early and enduring contribution to modern computing. He created the MITS Altair, the first inexpensive general-purpose microcomputer, a device that could be programmed to do all manner of tasks. For that achievement, some historians say Roberts deserves to be recognised as the inventor of the personal computer.

For Gates, the connection to Roberts was also personal. It was writing software for the MITS Altair that gave Gates, a student at Harvard at the time, and his Microsoft partner, Paul G. Allen, their start. Later, they moved to Albuquerque, where Roberts had set up shop.

Roberts died on Thursday at the Medical Center of Middle Georgia, his son Martin said. He was 68.

When the Altair was introduced in the mid-1970s, personal computers — then called microcomputers — were mainly intriguing electronic gadgets for hobbyists, the sort of people who tinkered with ham radio kits.

Roberts, it seems, was a classic hobbyist entrepreneur. He left his mark on computing, built a nice little business, sold it and moved on — well before personal computers moved into the mainstream of business and society.

Gates, as history proved, had far larger ambitions.

Over the years, there was some lingering animosity between the two men, and Roberts pointedly kept his distance from industry events.