Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems - Sale To Pertec

Sale To Pertec

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 just before the National Computer Conference in Dallas, Texas. Roberts got $2 million and the other 500 MITS shareholders (including the Altair co-designer, William Yates) split the rest.

Pertec was eager to increase sales to small businesses through the 26 Altair Computer stores across the United States. The marketing toward hobby/home user was curtailed. The November 1977 issue of the MITS newsletter, Computer Notes, was the last produced by the Albuquerque staff. There was one more issue produced by the Pertec staff in Chatsworth, California. The back cover of the leading home computer magazine, Byte, always carried a full page Altair advertisement. This ended with the September 1977 issue. Robert and Yates stayed on and worked on special projects.

In August 1979, Pertec agreed to sell a 45% stake to North American Philips for $37 million. Before the deal was complete, Pertec agreed to be acquired by the West German computer company, Triumph-Adler, for $120 million. In 1978, Pertec had sales of $150 million and Triumph-Adler had sales of $466 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 Pertec plants in Irvine, California.

By the end of 1977 Roberts left MITS and returned to Georgia to be a gentleman farmer. He studied medicine at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and graduated with a M.D. in 1986. Roberts practiced medicine in Cochran, Georgia, population 4500, until his death in 2010.