In Ed Roberts, dead at 68, the personal computer and medicine came together in a unique way.
Roberts, an electrical engineer, created the MITS Altair 8800, the first inexpensive microcomputer, then hired the youthful Bill Gates and Paul Allen to write a version of the BASIC programming language for it. That, in turn, gave the initial impetus that eventually had IBM knocking on Microsoft’s door when it wanted an operating system for the IBM PC, which, characteristically, Gates bought for a song and built an empire on.
Three years after Roberts sold Altair, he went to medical school, and settled down in Georgia as a country GP.
I couldn’t help but smile at the paragraph in the New York Times that ruminated on the fact that although Roberts designed his own EMR system a few years ago, “he never tried to sell it”.
That might have something to do with the fact that, as author and columnist “Bob Cringely” reports, Edwards was firmly rooted in the era of ascii terminal computing .
More than two decades past the height of his success, Roberts was still using the same hardware and using it well. In addition to Altairs with 8080 processors there were 8088’s, 8086’s, and even Motorola 68000’s. And every one of those was running some medical or back-office application connected to a terminal.
Next time you start cursing Medical Director – and there are many justifications for swear words – think what it might have been like had Ed Roberts designed it and run it on the notoriously cranky Altairs.
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