Hotsolder - Electronics & Other Geeky Pursuits: Altair: Everything Old is New Again

When I was barely a teenager, Popular Electronics ran their famous "Altair" article. I had just started learning about computers and I was mesmerized. The idea that you might be able to buy a computer and have it in your home just boggled my mind. I don't know what I thought I'd do with it, but I wanted one.

The problem was they were about $400 and even that was with little or no memory and certainly not with a terminal or other interface. In those days, $400 might as well have been a million to me. So I drooled over the Altair catalog (which I still have) and read every Popular Electronics article.

I'd eventually go on to build an 1802 (and I've written about that before). But I've always wanted an Altair.

I guess I'm not the only one. Someone is now producing pretty authentic Altair kits . The PCBs are a little more modern, but the ICs are original period ICs. So far, the only ones available are on eBay, but the Web site promises to actually sell them soon. Pricing is "probably" less than $1700. Hmm... I still can't afford an Altair. I wonder what my wife would tell me if I spent $1700 on "another computer" -- and one that doesn't do anything she'd appreciate at that!

But I know how hard it is to put a kit on the market, and that's a big kit with hard to find parts. So I don't blame the vendor for the price tag. If I were single (or if I wanted to be single again), I'd buy one in a flash.

Labels: old computer