Case-only Altair 8800?

[eduardo]

Hi,

I'm contemplating a project of building a one-off computer, to give as a gift.

The idea I'm looking at is to build a modern x86 machine inside of an Altair 8800 enclosure while keeping the outside of it as altair-like as possible, and ideally fully functional.

To do that, I'd need an Altair enclosure (original or replica), a display/control board, and if at all possible an altair 8800 emulator that I could run on the PC and interface into the display/control board. The questions I have about this are;

- Has anyone tried this before, and if so how did you go about it?

- What would be a good way to source the parts? I've tried emailing Grant with no luck (I saw other folks are having difficulty getting in touch with him). Is there another way to get in touch with him, or is there another good source for parts (original or new)?

- Has anyone tried interfacing the display/control board to any kind of a modern I/O board and have it emulate a functioning Altair? This will most likely end up being the most involved part of the whole project by far, but if it's even a possibility, I'd love to give it a go; it would be the icing on the cake for this project :)

Thanks!

Eduardo

[TomL_12953]

Try:

http://www.altair32.com/

Rich has an excellent Altair emulator and also has plans for a real front panel to interface with it. I use his emulator with a real ASR-33 Teletype. It works great!

Also try:

http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=11

There might be just what you're looking for (modern PC in an Altair case.)

Let's keep this board alive for more than spammers!