The MITS Altair 8800 was a do-it-yourself computer kit that many people believe sparked the PC revolution. The machine, which graced the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975, shipped on March 26th of that year with an Intel 8080 CPU and a 256-byte RAM card at a price of $400. It took its name from Star Trek, specifically the episode "A Voyage to Altair".

The young Bill Gates and Paul Allen were among the lives that were changed by the Altair. In interviews, Gates had been quoted as saying that discovering the box at the time was a major milestone for the duo. "When we read the description of the Altair, we didn't know exactly how it would be used, but we were sure it would change us."

Unfortunately, like many cool things, Altair eventually died and the company was acquired by Pertec.