4 Sep
2014
4 Sep
'14
noon
On 2014-Sep-04, at 10:48 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 09/04/2014 08:27 AM, drlegendre . wrote:
There's a Processor Technology 4K SRAM board with 1975 date codes on the ICs on ebay
right now.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Processor-Technology-4K-RAM-S-100-board-ships-world…
It's 120$ though, which (shockingly) seems to be the median price for S100 boards on
ebay.
It's not MITS but it's very period-correct for the Altair. According to
s100computers.com it was targeted for the Altair.
http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/Processor%20Technology/Histo…
There are a couple of Altair 4K DRAM boards on ebay too, at ridiculous prices.
I wonder how much it would take to mod one to make it reliable.
Really though, while that's true, it's
more about originality. The goal
here is to set the machine back to where it was when it was first built
from a kit, in 1975 or so. The rest of it is still pretty much intact, save
the "B" PSU mods. Not only would those changes be very hard to revert, but
they both period-correct -and- genuine MITS parts.
Maybe, but I think the best-selling 8800 kit was the special introductory deal--CPU
board, 2 4K DRAM boards and SIO for $1K. That's what grabbed my attention and I'm
sure that I wasn't the only one.
I picked up the acoustic coupler from a surplus TI Silent 700 parts seller, made a power
supply for it and wired it into the SIO using a swtich to toggle between it and my TVT.
Stored my files on the mainframe at work. Eventually rigged up a cheap audio cassette
recorder to the modem and I was in business.
I don't know if a 1K RAM board with no serial I/O would have attracted me even at
$500.