Selling Altair 8800 original and Sol 20

[doulamum]

Vintage Computers For Sale. Altair 8800 and Sol 20 and BYTE magazines.

My husband Stephen is selling all his vintage computing equipment to raise funds for our move across Canada. They are in good condition and have been in storage for a while. Please contact us at fairesfamily@gmail.com with your offers for anything listed here or to ask questions and I'll pass them to him because he's the one who knows everything We can ship worldwide and will charge shipping based on actual insured rates. Payments available through credit card and Paypal.

For Sale : MITS 8800 Altair Computer original. in good condition. I have the following peripherals: memory boards, cassette interface board, parallel input/output board, Processor Technologies CT 10 24 terminal paired with a surplus keyboard with a home made console, all original 8K Basic. written by Bill Gates and Co. Also assembler package. Documentation and manuals for above.


Sol 20 terminal computer with 2 Northstar floppy drives. Northstar basic and documentation for software and computer.

First year of BYTE magazine issues 1-16.

I can get pictures and/or video of everything if you like, just may take a couple of days. I'm pretty sure he had these working fairly recently. But in the meantime we are more than happy to answer questions about anything.

 

[barythrin]

Since it's your first post, if you do have time yes please upload some pictures and let us know. That will help in any sale so it'll be worth the effort. If he has a picture or video even of it working (especially the Altair) that will also help get you a good sum for the system Oh yeah, where abouts are you all located? (That'll help folks estimate shipping costs) Best of luck!

 

[doulamum]

We are in Canada.

We are in Canada.

We are in BC, Canada and so shipping is not a problem via mail, FedEx, UPS etc. We will of course insist on insurance and package them to be able to arrive in good condition no matter what the post office throws at them. I will have some pictures of the systems and peripherals on the weekend or sooner if I can. I have to locate my camera and then get these babies fired up. We're not sure what they would be worth in working order. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Erik]

Anyone have any suggestions?

As with most things condition (cosmetic and functional) probably matters more than anything.

The Byte mags are easiest. If they are in good condition first year runs tend to go for between $100 and $200.

The Sol 20 is probably worth about $1,000. The drives and docs help and if it boots you might be able to get $1,250 to $1,500 from it.

The Altair is usually a $1,500 to $2,000 machine, give or take, with really nice examples going a bit higher. With the terminal, docs, software and so on yours falls under the heading of "nice" to "really nice" - especially if it's clean and works properly.

Those are my spitball estimates, to be take with the appropriate dose of salt, especially without pictures...

 

[Druid6900]

Once Erik gets a 30 second look at some pictures, he'll be able to tell you, down to the penny, what each screw is worth

 

[doulamum]

Hi everyone. We have posted pics over on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/64886521@N08/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64886521@N08/ and there's a short video of the Altair working too.

https://flic.kr/p/9ZGFBs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64886521@N08/5903873728/in/photostream

Here's the info my husband gave me. Notes for Altair:
Includes Altair computer case with power supply, front panel control,
and motherboard with 8 slots.
CPU board, 1k static memory board, 2 4K Synchronous dynamic memory
boards, generic parallel I/O board, Audio Cassette interface (2
piggybacked boards, modem and serial I/O).
These cards should allow running 8K Basic from the cassette.
Other cards included separately: 2 4K original dynamic memory boards,
Parallel I/O board.
Software: Altair 8k Basic and Assembler Package on cassette (also a
backup copy on reel to reel tape) and documentation for everything.

Computer is operational as far as running a loop to self at location
0, but not tested otherwise. I don't have a cassette player that I
would trust with those cassettes so cannot test with Basic.

Computer requires external terminal (was configured to use parallel
interface card).

Notes for Sol 20:

Includes Sol 20 computer which features keyboard, builtin video
display (requires standard video monitor or TV with composite video
input), cassette interface, parallel and serial port and simple
control software on ROM (personality module).
1 8k and 1 16K memory boards.
Sol Basic5 on cassette.
Test program for 16K memory card on cassette.
Documentation for computer, memory cards and software.

Computer boots up ok and displays command prompt but unfortunately
many keyboard keys are not working so could not enter any commands for
testing but whatever keys are working are echoed correctly. Keyboard
is a capacitive type as described in detail in the documentation so
it's not a simple case of bad key contacts. Test equipment all packed
away so couldn't test further.
General condition is good save a little rust and corrosion here and there.


Notes on CT1024

This is the original terminal I used with the Altair and it is set up
to interface with the generic parallel interface board.
The display board does output characters to a video monitor
successfully, but I have no way to test it with an input or to test
the keyboard.
The case is crude but exemplifies the homebrew nature of those early
days of home computing!
Documentation is included.

 

[Roman78]

:inlove: @ Altair

But way to expensive for me.

 

[curtis]

I'd love to have either of them, but I'm in the same boat Roman78 is in.

I could either take one or both or pay the mortgage.

Guess which the wife votes for...

 

[barythrin]

Curtis, you're smiling so she said yes?? Beautiful systems. Makin' me calculate all sorts of ridiculous things right now.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

Maybe I should go and buy a bunch of lottery tickets in hope I can get some moolah to buy one of these.

 

[doulamum]

Just to let you know we've tentatively sold the Altair, Sol 20 and CT-1024.