THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY…

…is of little use to you? Do you long for the days of your youth when computers were new, and exciting (and perhaps useful only to those with the “know how”?) Or maybe the early days of computers were before you were even born, and you simply want to know what the big deal was? Or maybe you’re like me, a mere child when you first heard the notion that people could actually have a computer in their very own home!

I was a child of 9 years old when the Altair 8800 was announced on the pages of Popular Electronics magazine in January of 1975. It captured my imagination – and I knew that someday I would build and own my own computer. I never did get an Altair 8800 – the computer revolution was started and it moved FAST. The heyday of the Altair lasted only a short while. The first computer I built was 7 years later when I built the Sinclair ZX81 kit.

Well imagine my surprise 42 years later when David Hansel of Brookline, MA published his Ardunio-based Altair 8800 emulator project on hackster.io! I knew this was my chance to finally build an Altair 8800!

Once I saw David’s code and design, I knew I could improve on it and make an affordable, easy-to-build kit. My first “beta-testers” were my 12 and 14 year old sons! Yes, you can still follow David’s original plan if you wish. If you want a ready-to-go kit, look no further.

This is my newly-released "Pro" version 3.0 of the kit. It includes a lookalike case designed by Mike Douglas and an I/O expansion board with VT100 emulation, RS232 serial port, audio jack (emulating the Processor Technology Music System), and power jack. The kit also include a micro SD card with productivity software and games for Microsoft BASIC, Altair DOS, CP/M, and more.

This is a cycle-accurate recreation of the original Altair 8800. What does that mean? It means the Intel 8080 CPU is emulated, as is some of the basic I/O (disk drives, serial ports, etc.) but everything else is REAL Altair machine code and CP/M that was created more than 40 years ago!

Original Altair 8800

1. Dimensions: 17″ x 7″ x 18″
2. Weight: depends on cards loaded, but generally around 65 lbs.
3. RAM: 64KB maximum
4. Storage: Cassette tape, Paper tape, 8" floppy, 5.25" floppy, 5MB hard drive

Altair-Duino

1. Dimensions: 17″ x 7″ x 18″
2. Weight: 9 lbs.
3. RAM: 512KB (64KB maximum for Altair emulation, the rest used as storage for Altair programs and utilities.)
4. Storage: Micro SD card with megabytes of classic software included (CPM, Altair DOS, BASIC)
5. Built-in VT100 emulator

Includes everything you need to build a fully-functional re-creation of the Altair 8800 computer (professionally made printed circuit board, all components, pre-programmed Arduino Due, bound color assembly instructions and operations manual, replica case, and more). It can connect to a standard ASCII serial terminal, a VGA monitor and USB keyboard (for VT100 emulation), or you can use a serial emulator (PuTTY or Tera Term) on your laptop. (Note: expansion cards pictured above are not included with this kit. You can find out more about expansion cards designed for this bus at Github.)

Assembly will require intermediate soldering skills (all through-hole components) and can be completed in 5-6 hours.

Due to the size, international shipping will be very expensive. I would suggest looking at the shelf-friendly (and budget-friendly) Altair-Duino Experimenter.