The Altair sold for about $395 in kit form and about $650 assembled. The Altair also introduced the Altair Bus (later known as the "S-100 Bus") which was also used in many other microcomputers that followed the Altair's blazed trail.

The Altair was designed by Roberts and two others, William Yates and Jim Bybee. All were former Air Force engineers. Ed Roberts left MITS in 1977, the year it merged with the computer company Pertec.

 About 5,000 Altair 8800 units were sold by the end of 1975, and a total of about 10,000 were sold in the first two years.

The Altair is featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" under the heading "World's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models."

See also the Altair 680

(History -: Some sources say that the computer was named "Altair" after the planet Altair from a Star Trek television series episode "A Voyage to Altair." However, research provided by Ricardo Zelenovsky, states that there is no such episode, and the name may in fact be from a planed referred to in an early science fiction movie. "Forbidden Planet," where there is a planet called "Altair IV.")

The Altair needed a method for users to write programs for it. Bill Gates and Paul Allen became aware of the Altair and developed a BASIC interpreter for it and sold it to MITS. Allen went to work for MITS, while Bill Gates went on to develop other software. They later founded Microsoft Corporation.