<P> Bill Gates remained at Harvard, but continued working on BASIC . Students were allowed to use the DEC PDP - 10, but officials were not pleased when they found that Gates was developing a commercial product . The school then implemented a policy that forced Gates to use a commercial time share service to work on BASIC . </P> <P> On July 22, 1975, MITS signed a contract for the Altair BASIC with Bill Gates and Paul Allen . They received $3,000 at signing and a royalty for each copy of BASIC sold, with a cap of $180,000 . MITS received an exclusive worldwide license to the program for 10 years . They also had exclusive rights to sublicense the program to other companies and agreed to use its "best efforts" to license, promote and commercialize the program . MITS would supply the computer time necessary for development on a PDP - 10 owned by the Albuquerque school district . </P> <P> MITS realized that BASIC was a competitive advantage and bundled the software with computer hardware sales . Customers who purchased the computer, memory, and I / O boards from MITS could get BASIC for $75; the standalone price was $500 . Many hobbyists purchased their hardware from a third - party and "borrowed" a copy of Altair BASIC . Roberts refused to sub-license BASIC to other companies; this led to arbitration in 1977 between MITS and the new "Micro-Soft". The arbitrator agreed with Microsoft and allowed them to license the 8080 BASIC to other companies . Roberts was disappointed with this ruling . Since both Allen and Gates had been employees of MITS and he paid for the computer time, Roberts felt it was his software . </P> <P> In 1976, MITS had 230 employees and sales of $6 million . Roberts was tiring of his management responsibilities and was looking for a larger partner . MITS had always used Pertec Computer Corporation disk drives and on December 3, 1976, Pertec signed a letter of intent to acquire MITS for $6 million in stock . The deal was completed in May 1977 and Roberts' share was $2--3 million . The Altair products were merged into the Pertec line, and the MITS facility was used to produce the PCC - 2000 small - business computer . The Albuquerque plant was closed in December 1980 and the production was moved to the Pertec plants in Irvine, California . </P>

Who invented the personal computer and how old was he