Mike8800
Member
Hi!
I just found and joined this group to help in the restoration of my Altair 8800. Actually, it may be an overstatement to say restoration. I built this machine in 1975 on the 8 month plan that MITS had at the time. $68.50 a month for 8 months got you an Altair kit with a 8080 CPU card and a 1K static memory card.
Over the years I learned a heck of a lot about computers and microprocessors because of that computer and enjoyed a very good engineering career partly because of it. My plan now is to get it up and running again and then sell it to someone that will use it. Along the way, I enhanced my Altair with a beefed up power supply (forget what company sold it), and the Processor Technology motherboard with real buss termination to keep SWR down. Over the years I had CP/M and MP/M running. I also have 11 S-100 boards for the Altair ranging from the Cromemco Z80 card (at a blistering 4MHz!), to a A/D and D/A board, multiple memory boards, and I/O. I've just started to inventory what I have. Also a pile of 8" floppy disks I also started going through the documentation I have. Lots of memories there!
A previous thread gave some pointers for getting a system that has been dormant up and running again safely. I am familiar with most of them as I collect vintage Collins Ham gear and have re-capped a few of those to replace some of the older capacitors. My plan is to photograph every step and post it here if folks are interested. This is probably going to take a while so don't expect daily updates. I also travel a lot in my job so my 'play' time with the Altair has to compete with other activities.
I have 2 8" disk drives that are interfaced to the Altair using the California Computer system interface card. I wrote the bios for my Altair and enhanced and improved it over the years. I hope I can get the M80 assembler up and running also. Funny how this all starts coming back to you after 20+ years of inactivity!
The scary part is that I still remember some of the hex opcodes for the Z80!
Questions are welcomed, and I hope to have pictures of the current state of the Altair posted soon if there is any interest.
Mike
I just found and joined this group to help in the restoration of my Altair 8800. Actually, it may be an overstatement to say restoration. I built this machine in 1975 on the 8 month plan that MITS had at the time. $68.50 a month for 8 months got you an Altair kit with a 8080 CPU card and a 1K static memory card.
Over the years I learned a heck of a lot about computers and microprocessors because of that computer and enjoyed a very good engineering career partly because of it. My plan now is to get it up and running again and then sell it to someone that will use it. Along the way, I enhanced my Altair with a beefed up power supply (forget what company sold it), and the Processor Technology motherboard with real buss termination to keep SWR down. Over the years I had CP/M and MP/M running. I also have 11 S-100 boards for the Altair ranging from the Cromemco Z80 card (at a blistering 4MHz!), to a A/D and D/A board, multiple memory boards, and I/O. I've just started to inventory what I have. Also a pile of 8" floppy disks I also started going through the documentation I have. Lots of memories there!
A previous thread gave some pointers for getting a system that has been dormant up and running again safely. I am familiar with most of them as I collect vintage Collins Ham gear and have re-capped a few of those to replace some of the older capacitors. My plan is to photograph every step and post it here if folks are interested. This is probably going to take a while so don't expect daily updates. I also travel a lot in my job so my 'play' time with the Altair has to compete with other activities.
I have 2 8" disk drives that are interfaced to the Altair using the California Computer system interface card. I wrote the bios for my Altair and enhanced and improved it over the years. I hope I can get the M80 assembler up and running also. Funny how this all starts coming back to you after 20+ years of inactivity!
The scary part is that I still remember some of the hex opcodes for the Z80!
Questions are welcomed, and I hope to have pictures of the current state of the Altair posted soon if there is any interest.
Mike