4 Feb
2010
4 Feb
'10
4:13 p.m.
The 8812 is not the original and much rarer
Polymorphic Micro-Altair,
later called Poly-88. Those came out in 1976 and might fetch $8000.
The 8813 series were advertised into early 1979 and are worth more like
$400-600 at best, in unknown condition.
Bill
The 8812 is the same as the 8813 with the exception of it only having
two disk drives.
Re: the Micro-Altair. The story I've heard is that the Poly88 was
originally named the Micro-Altair, but the name was changed because of
objections from MITS.
I've talked to a number of people who used to work at Polymorphic trying
to find out if the Micro-Altair actually existed as a physical product.
To date, I haven't found anyone who has said the Micro-Altair actually
existed.
FWIW as I've mentioned from time to time, I probably have the largest
collection of Poly documentation left as well as stuff I've never heard
of before. When Poly shut down, they put all of their stuff that was
left in storage. A friend of mine knew the owner and acquired a lot of
it, and gave it to me.
One of my many todo projects is to get this stuff saved as it includes
source code and manuals for most of their products. There is a little
over one full filing cabinet full of docs in addition to several boxes
of parts.
Something that I find fascinating is one of their business plans after
Poly had a change in management about 1981 as it includes flyers and
information about their then current product line.