Got a REV0 Altair 8800 yesterday

[vbriel]

This is a kit that I've wanted for a while and finally the pieces came together and I was able to get this fine working machine. It is a rev 0 (sold as a kit) with the 1K RAM card only populated with 256 bytes and the white 8080.

I've tested the front panel and everything appears to work great and the case is in really good condition. The only small flaw is the front name plate is starting to peal the plastic coating off of it just slightly in the left corner. The slot board only has 2 slots occupied and so I'm stuck with only being able to use 2 slot since I don't want to change the history of the boards.

I may make a custom 32 or 64K RAM board with the SIO built on so I can run basic, has anybody already done this?

Vince

[marty]

Hi Vince;
I am courious , where you got this Kit ??? Congratulations on getting it going... You would have to use some pretty modern chips to fit everything on a Board, since a 32K or 64k memory would take up almost of of the board space.. As well as an Sio would take as scruntched about a half a board space...
THANK YOU Marty

[vbriel]

It wasn't a kit, it is a real Altair 8800 revision 0. It was originally sold as a kit and the buyer built it in 1975.

With modern chips is how I was going to do the 32K because you only need 1 chip plus decoding for that. Now, for the SIO a 6850 and a few support chips will do the trick.

I'm going to do a layout design after a while and see what I come up with.

Vince

[marty]

Hi Vince;
THANK YOU for answering me!!!
If you Don't have too many changes to your Addresses, you could wire it for hex 00 and 10 and none others, and use even less space for your decoding, than for all the spaces (Addresses) on the origional 88-2SIO.....
THANK YOU Marty