It is speculative but plausible to guess that the 1965 release of the PDP-8 might have instigated Gray’s own home computer project and the later creation of the ACS.

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The Newsstand That Spawned Microsoft is Set to Close (technologizer.com) Out of Town News, the iconic newsstand smack in the middle of Cambridge, Mass.’s Harvard Square, is within a month of shutting down after 54 years in business. It’s one of the most famous meeting points in the Boston area, since it’s so impossible to miss. But as the Boston Globe reports today, it also played a supporting role in one of the most famous moments in computer history.

From ACS to Altair: The Rise of the Hobby Computer (technichistory.com) A certain pattern of technological development recurred many times in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century: a scattered hobby community, tinkering with a new idea, develops it to the point where those hobbyists can sell it as a product. This sets off a frenzy of small entrepreneurial firms, competing to sell to other hobbyists and early adopters. Finally, a handful of firms grow to the point where they can drive down costs through economies of scale and put their smaller competitors out of business. Bicycles, automobiles, airplanes, and radio broadcasting all developed more or less in this way.