Which company introduced the first personal computer kit, the Altair 8800, in 1975? MITS.
The Altair 8800 was introduced by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, usually abbreviated MITS. Founded in Albuquerque in 1969, MITS had first made electronics equipment and calculator kits. In 1974, company president Ed Roberts and engineer Bill Yates designed an affordable computer kit around Intel’s 8080 microprocessor.
The machine gained enormous attention when it appeared on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, whose issue reached newsstands in December 1974. Buyers assembled the kit themselves and programmed it through front-panel switches; the basic machine had no built-in screen or keyboard. Its expansion bus later became the S-100 standard.
The Altair’s popularity helped ignite the microcomputer industry. Microsoft’s first product, Altair BASIC, was written for it, while later companies built compatible hardware and expansion cards. A common confusion is the date: the design and magazine appearance straddled late 1974 and early 1975, but 1975 is the standard launch year used in this question.