altair 8800b with 3 drives ....value?

[ebaybrad1]

I just acquired an altair 8800b with three 8" disk drives from the widow of the orig owner. The puter does show a power light, but i dont have a terminal or knowledge to test. The drives I have not tested. I cleaned the whole thing up after this pic. Everything came very clean and appears to just be dirty from storage. A few of the toggles have broken. The inside was almost completely full of boards including 4 RAM separate memory boards.

Any idea of the value? These are a bit before my time. I have some very rare personal computers, but from apple II days forward. 1978+. I have a ti-99/8. commodore 65, ti-99/4 x6, and a stack of apple II no pluses...and no those are not for sale.

I took some pics of the pieces beofre i cleaned it all up.

 

[billdeg]

ebay $2000 as is. running maybe $3500.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Those switches, I seem to recall are standard C&K toggles. Still made, so if you want to fix those, you have a starting point.

I suspect that the capacitors in the power supply have long dried out--they did in my 8800 about 20 years ago. But you might be able to get the thing running with a comparatively small investment and some luck.

 

[barythrin]

Wow, didn't read the end of your original post closely enough, so yes you're sitting on some nice systems in your collection. Good job billdeg pretty much rattled off the last sale type prices on ebay. It's a pretty crazy market right now so obviously ya can't just take an auction as a steady price, but yes if you're wanting to sell it and get the most out of it, that's probably the way to go. I would be tempted to sell the floppies separately or just bundle one in there since there are probably folks with an Altair but without a drive, etc.

Obviously working is the best sale as mentioned. If you're savvy and enjoy the tech side of life it's a great project to try and get up and running. It'll pay off.

 

[billdeg]

Wow, didn't read the end of your original post closely enough, so yes you're sitting on some nice systems in your collection. Good job billdeg pretty much rattled off the last sale type prices on ebay. It's a pretty crazy market right now so obviously ya can't just take an auction as a steady price, but yes if you're wanting to sell it and get the most out of it, that's probably the way to go. I would be tempted to sell the floppies separately or just bundle one in there since there are probably folks with an Altair but without a drive, etc.

Obviously working is the best sale as mentioned. If you're savvy and enjoy the tech side of life it's a great project to try and get up and running. It'll pay off.

make sure you include the controller cards and cables!

 

[ebaybrad1]

well, I put it on ebay so I guess we will see. They are real cool to look at, especially stacked up, but my interests are a few years later.

 

[barythrin]

Care to share the ..er.. nm. [url="http://www.ebay.com/itm/MITS-Altair-8800B-Computer-and-Altair-Disk-drive-combo-NO-RESERVE-not-IMSAI-/250973702904]The auction is here I believe[/url]. Off to a good start!