S100 box (was Re: imsai 2)

Thanky very much and, here's your sign! Let me introduce myself... in december of 1974 I got my copy of Popular Electronics as usual and lo and behold there was Altair. Having some expereince with 8008 prior to that and PDP-8 as well I wanted one and had saved some money. Off goes order by then airmail! Arrived 4 weeks later (told thats a record too) is 200th built Altair with a 4k memory and PIO. Built with in days and I was for many weeks maybe months the first one I know of on LI to have a machine. NOW, there is NO question the PS was crap. The first transformers (two of them for both voltages) were horribly undersized for the load, the filter caps not to mention the diodes were also pretty over loaded. By time spring came I'd finally gotten my 88ACR and another 4k of ram and watche the PS fry. The transofrmer for +-16 was too light and I found a suitable replacement. The somewhat larger +8 core was stripped and rewound to provide 7.5V and the caps were tossed for some nice 55,000mFD units. LIke I said the design was CRAP!. MITS would later that summer send a new pair of transformers that were better but still woefully undersized. The were first, not best! They did. IMSAI was far better as was the Altair 8800B. Everyone that follow surely learned from the errors from better poser supplies to improved cooling and bus noise reduction. I said that at the time and quite bluntly, however it was cheap and most of the problems could be overcome if you didn't mind applying some havey modifications. On my part yes, I'm still here. They arent. Actually in many ways that is not true and you know why. The Bseries was how many years later? By then everyone was eating MITS lunch. Yep, and all of the above applies. As a practicing engineer then and now while the idea of cheap facinated me, I was surprized that things know to the industry were not apparently know to those guys. It's why by early '78 that box was for the most part permanenty retired. It is still in my collection and while first from my engineering perspective it serves as shining example of HOW NOT TO DO IT. It stays in the collection as MY first one and how persistance allowed me to do things that were difficult then with the hardware available (to me). Oh, guess my resume doesn't qualify. It was majik. No question but as someone that was there there was more magic in our dreams. Those dreams I may add were all to often spent chasing a design of the machine error when the real desire was to crank code! Or watching our really neat VDM1 demo fry as bus nise crashed the machine. Like the Model T those of us that have driven one, worked on the engine understand why it deserves to be preserved, driven and documented as it it's effect on the world. It does not negate that it's a crude machine. The later will never change but history knows that too. It's partly the reason for the AAA and a lot of other inovations! With that in mind the computer equivelent of AAA was the Homebrew Computer Club, LICA<Long Island Computer Association>, BCC <boston computer Society> and so on. They were there to help those that couldn't cope with the design errors, limitations or outright shoddy design on their way to accomplishing a dream which wa often very different from coping with a machine that didn't work as could be expected. Not a rant, just a loud, wake up! The good old days were more than simple. VCF is dedicated to showing the full story, all of it including the dirty sides like the World Power SCAM. Allison