1941 Miami [USA] † 2010

He developed the first commercially successful personal computer, the Altair 8800, which was featured on the January 1975 cover of Popular Electronics magazine and could be purchased as a kit from MITS (which he co-founded with Forrest Mims) for $397.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates saw the magazine and began writing software for the Altair computer. They went to the company's headquarters in Albuquerque to work for MITS, and in July 1975, they founded Microsoft.