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Mits Altair Furniture Retention

jhalbrecht

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
93
Location
Mesa, Az
I recently purchased what I believe would be called a Mits 300/25 with the rack, desk and supports. The table top is in reasonably, but not perfect, condition. It looks complete with an 8800b front panel and a turnkey board. And dual Pertec eight inch floppy disk drives all on rails. I believe I have a matching printer stand for it too. My purchase is insane in light of the concerted and so far successful effort I've been making over the last several months to reduce the amount of Vintage equipment I have consuming so much available space throughout my home.

592px-Mits_300_25_Brochure.jpg

There are actual images of the system, boards and drive on my wiki here.

Some thoughts for discussion.

  • How important is it to save remaining examples of Mits computer systems and their original cabinets / furniture?
  • How many examples of furniture are still existing?

I would like to sell it, I want the space. It would probably be easier if I just sold the computer and drives without the desk. However I feel it's important to preserve some examples of where we came from. I'm thinking it would be unfortunate to separate the computer from the desk. And it would be unthinkable to scrap the desk / cabinetry. Or perhaps there are enough examples in museums and collections now?

Thoughts?


Thanks, - Jeff
 
1. How important is it to save remaining examples of Mits computer systems and their original cabinets / furniture?
2. How many examples of furniture are still existing?

If market values are any indicator, the answer to (1) is "less than an Apple I" and (2) I suspect that, given the price and time, not very many. You may well have the only examples.
 
Bill Degnan has an Altair in a desk, and I've seen one other in recent memory. I've never seen the printer stand or chair in person, don't know if that was a matching thing or not. I wouldn't be surprised if the desk is a generic (possibly Optima) product, the Cromemco System Three desk is very, very similar, and mine is even blue under the brown paint.
 
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Personally, I preferred the times when the computer was the desk:

CDC-160_computer_500.jpg
 
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