Altair 8800 name Was: Re: Altair 680 Expansion Boards?

[allison]

On 12/21/2016 07:06 PM, Sam O'nella wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 5:54 PM, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 12/17/2016 1:23 PM, Stephen Pereira wrote:
>>
>>> I was (finally) lucky enough to acquire an Altair 680 back in November...
>>>
>> Is there any logic to the naming of these Altairs?   Wonder why it wasn't
>> "Altair 8080" and "Altair 6800".   8800 and 680 don't follow the same
>> pattern.
>>
>> ------
>>
>> Had MITS made other Altairs...
>>
>> Altair 8800 = 8080
>>        8850 = 8085
>>        8860 = 8086
>>        8880 = 8088
>>        8286 = 80286
>>        8386 = 80386
>>        680  = 6800
>>        680  = 6809
>>        680  = 68000
>>
>> ;-),
>>
>> - JS
>> ----------------------------
>>
> lol, I would love to hear that too if anyone knows any stories behind the
> naming. Used to hurt my head to remember that it was an 8800 not an 8080.
> I know the fairly well published story about the name Altair but companies
> and their model numbers are always odd.
>
My bets..

I'd put $.09 on got the numbers wrong and went with it.
then $0.01 on, it wasn't marketing. 
and $0.90 on, who cares.

The 680 was from a market perspective a fail.  The successful 6800 was SWTP.
The 6502 was dominated by Apple.
The Z80 had more players and more names than all the rest.

That of course is MY US centric view other countries had theirs too.

Almost  all of the system naming of the day for the intel based systems
and heirs
(8080/8085/Z80/8088/8086) was irrational, illogical, and often just
plain bad.


Allison