Altair 8800 reproduction

[Tom Hunter]

The Altair-Druino kit arrived yesterday morning. I built it and am very
impressed. In many ways it is better and more useful than a real Altair
8800 or a 8800c.

Cheers
Tom Hunter

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:07 PM Tom Hunter <ccth6600 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am not the most patient person.  :-)
> While waiting for my Altair-Duino to arrive in the mail I discovered a
> cool JavaScript based implementation.
> It allows me to start playing with the Altair 8800 front panel and
> exercise the "machine". It does a fairly decent job.
>
> https://s2js.com/altair/
>
> Cheers
> Tom Hunter
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 2:11 PM Tom Hunter <ccth6600 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I thought about it long and hard. A fully configured Altair 8800c would
>> be at least $1200 plus shipping to Australia from all the different
>> component suppliers at least another $600. I would end up with a "real"
>> system but some parts wouldn't quite be real. For example the floppy drives
>> are emulated via a USB cable and a server running on a PC. It would be
>> possible to add real 8" or 5 1/4" drives plus power supplies plus cases and
>> cabling at great additional cost. At the end it would still be some hybrid
>> system with some modern bits substituting the original components. I would
>> have a nice S-100 bus system but it wouldn't be an authentic Altair 8800a.
>> So I decided to go down the fully emulated path and looked at Mike
>> Douglas's Altair 8800 clone and the Altair-Duino.
>>
>> I ended up buying the Altair-Duino a very promising Arduino Due (ARM)
>> based clone similar to Mike Douglas's clone but without the nice metal case.
>> This Altair-Duino kit is affordable, is open source and has a powerful
>> hardware platform.  Now that I am retired I am time rich and money poor.
>> :-)
>>
>> The "Standard" kit is $149.95:
>>
>> https://www.adwaterandstir.com/product/altair-8800-emulator-kit/
>>
>> Strangely the website says there is no stock available from the guy
>> himself, but Tindie has 4 in stock:
>>
>>
>> https://www.tindie.com/products/kb0wwp/altair-duino-standard/?pt=ac_prod_search
>>
>> I can't wait for it to arrive. It is a long way from Minnesota to Western
>> Australia. Covid-19 doesn't speed it up either.    :-(
>>
>> Cheers
>> Tom Hunter
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 1:12 AM Tapley, Mark B. via cctalk <
>> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Jul 23, 2020, at 10:15 PM, Tom Hunter via cctalk <
>>> cctalk at classiccmp.org<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> The easiest and more affordable path would be the Altair
>>> 8800 clone but somehow I am more attracted to the non-emulated
>>> implementation.
>>>
>>> Understood space, time, and money are always factors, but I’m curious
>>> whether that’s an XOR function or a simple OR (which would be satisfied
>>> with both)? Having played in software on “modern” hardware might be pretty
>>> useful when it’s time to start bringing up the reproduction hardware.
>>>
>>