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Personal Computers Democratized Computing
- The personal computer revolution democratized computing by making machines affordable and usable for individuals and small businesses.
- It shifted power from mainframes costing hundreds of thousands to machines priced in the low thousands, enabling everyday tasks and communication.
Microprocessor Enabled Desktop Computers
- Microprocessors made small, inexpensive computers possible by packing a CPU onto a single chip.
- Integrating multiple chips into one lowered cost and enabled mass production of desktop machines in the 1970s.
How Microsoft Started With an Altair Demo
- Bill Gates and Paul Allen built an Intel 8080 BASIC by simulating the chip on a university mainframe and proved it on an Altair prototype.
- Paul Allen hand-wrote a bootloader on a plane and saw it run "2 plus 2" when he arrived at MITS.