（BBC）The father of the personal puter who kick-started the careers of Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen has died at the age of 68. Dr Henry Edward Roberts was the inventor of the Altair 8800, a machine that led to the home puter age.
Gates and Allen contacted Dr Roberts after seeing the machine on the front cover of a magazine and offered to write software for it. The program was known as Altair-Basic, the foundation of Microsoft's business. Ed was willing to take a chance on us - two young guys interested in puters , and we have always been thankful to him, the Microsoft founders said in a statement.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told technology website CNET that Dr Roberts had taken a critically important step that led to everything we have today. [来源:学,科,网Z,X,X,K]
Dr Roberts was the founder of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), originally set up to sell electronics parts to model rocket hobbyists. The pany went on to sell electronic calculator parts, but was soon overshadowed by bigger firms.
In the mid-1970's, with the firm struggling with debt, Dr Roberts began to develop a puter kit(配套零件) for hobbyists. The result was the Altair 8800. The $395 kit (around £1,000 today) was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1975, resulting in a flood of orders.
Amongst those interested in the machine were Paul Allen and Bill Gates. The pair contacted Dr Roberts, offering to write software that would help people program the machine. The pair finally moved to Albuquerque - the home of MITS - where they founded Micro-Soft, to develop their software.
Dr Roberts sold his pany in 1977. He died in hospital on 1 April after a long period of pneumonia．(肺炎)
【小题1】Why did Dr Roberts probably decide to sell his pany? A．Because he was in heavy debt in the mid-1980's .B．Because he wanted to take a chance on Gates and Allen.C．Because he wanted to develop a puter kit for hobbyists.D．Because he had difficulty peting with big panies.【小题2】What do we know about MITS?A．It was set up by Steve Wozniak.B．It sold electronics parts to big firms.C．It is located in Albuquerque.D．It is a technology website.【小题3】We can learn that Popular Electronics is likely to be .A．a newspaperB．a magazineC．a Website D．an organization【小题4】What is the best title of this passage?A．The story of the Altair 8800B．The founder of MITSC．Father of the personal puter diedD．The story of Dr RobertsD
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