3 Oct
2001
3 Oct
'01
9:20 a.m.
At 01:54 PM 10/3/01 -0600, you wrote:
The Altair ad in Pop-Tronics or popular mechanics or
whatever, came out in
'75,
didn't it?
I'm pretty certain that it was the cover article in the Jan 1976 issue
of Popular Electronics.
Once the Altair was "out there" a number of computer makers came out
with their own versions of S-100-based machine, e.g. th
Alpha-Micro, which
was
reputed to be every bit competitive with the
'11's. I don't know how they
compared in cost, however. The AM was "sort-of" S-100, in that it used S-100
memory, but I can't say whether it worked with other devices.
I used to have an AM-100. I don't know a lot about it but I do know
that it used the S-100 bus but it was a 16 bit system. It had to fetch two
8 bit words just like the original IBM PC.
The Alpha Micro was pretty sought-after among the lip-service, but I never
saw
one in someone's possession.
I had one but finally sold it since I coulden't find any docs, manuals,
SW or anything else for. I couldn't even find the instruction set for the CPU!
Joe
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Ford" <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: Altair 8800a on EBAY
Richard
Erlacher said:
DEC something?
Tandy 10?
Basic4?
Rotten core, I can't remember the one I really want to, Micron 100, maybe
something with an A or T at the start, but it was a whole chassis with
smoked glass doors etc., not some hobby machine.
The Altair was never a computer that one
interested in computing
would have bought for what the kit cost....
So what Was the serious computer to buy for that era?
It would probably be impossibly expensive, leaving many,
including the serious, without anything.
John A.