A DEC PDP-10 mainframe computer from the Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) collection, will be auctioned at Christie's in September. This mainframe computer is the same model Bill Gates and Paul Allen used at Harvard University to build Altair BASIC, which became Microsoft's first commercial software product. However, the mainframe on sale was originally registered to Kiel University in Germany before Allen acquired it to restore.
The Altair 8800 microcomputer appeared on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. Gates and Allen saw this and called up the Albuquerque, New Mexico company, telling MITS founder Ed Roberts, “Hey, we can do software for this machine.” He agreed to a demonstration, but since they didn’t have anything yet, so they had to come up with something quick.
