As far as I know, the original Altair 8800 uses the normal full bat handle
switches. The Altair 8800a and 8800b use flat bat handled switches as
shown on mine here:
I had to find some of the flat bat handled switches and the authentic ones
are almost impossible to find. I happened to find a person who worked at
MITS that had some spares.
On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 10:25 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
Oh duh for me! Confusion reigns supreme.
Yes.. the IMSAI uses those really wide plastic paddle switches.. that I had
always assumed were a +Carling+ part, as Carling has a line of switches
with similar handles.
Altair 8800A and B both use the metal mini-toggles - the former, bat-handle
the latter, the narrow metal paddle-handle.
On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 9:01 PM, Richard Cini <rich.cini at verizon.net>
wrote:
The "B" model used a flatted bat handle
toggle switch which IIRC weren't
made by C&K. I think I may have the number somewhere but I think there
was
a thread with this info a few years ago. A Google
search might produce
it.
The Altair group archive on Yahoo might have it
too.
The IMSAI uses a plastic paddle switch.
Rich
Sent from my iPhone
> On Nov 5, 2016, at 9:56 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Not exactly--momentary, yes, but clearly not the paddle switches used
on
> the IMSAI. Fortunately, PCB-mount toggle
switches are quite a bit
> easier to locate."
>
> Right, I thought about that once I'd posted.
>
> My 8800A (with B supplies) still has the basic mini bat-handle style
> switches. Correct me on this, but the later Altair 8800B use the
> paddle-style handle, same as the IMSAI?
>
>> On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 8:45 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/05/2016 05:10 PM, Mike Ross wrote:
>>>
>>> I need those too - some of my Altair switches have the handles
>>> physically broken... in fact pretty much ALL the large switches (the
>>> bottom row for run/deposit/exam/reset etc.) are ropey in one way or
>>> another and need replacing (the smaller data/address switches are
>>> fine). If anyone tracks down the correct type of switch please post
>>> a link here! Or if you have any for sale shoot me an email.
>>
>>
>> The site I linked to from C&K is a good example of how a
manufacturer's
>> web site should be--parameterized search
with vendor stock check. So,
>> for example, the momentary on-off-on 20V PC mount unthreaded with
10.67
> mm
handle would be 7105SY9V3BE--and Arrow has about 150 in stock.
>
> Beats spending time on the phone talking to "inside sales".
>
> --Chuck
>