Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Brand New Altair 8800 Clone With 1976 Price
By James Grahame
There have been several Altair 8800 remakes and emulations in recent years, but this brand new version by Mike Douglas does a great job of mimicking the impressive look and feel of the original without relying on outdated technology. Instead of a case crammed full of boards, a Microchip microcontroller is used to emulate an 8080A CPU running at 2 MHz with 64K RAM, 16K ROM, along with printer, cassette and floppy disk I/O.
Douglas explains: "The Altair 8800 Clone is a full size, fully functional replica of the computer that started a revolution – the Altair 8800. Whether used for personal or educational purposes, the Altair Clone is a great way to relive this important period in computing history and learn core computer science principles at the same time!
The Altair Clone provides an accurate, hands-on experience without having to worry about damaging a vintage computer. Built with modern hardware on the inside, the Clone is also less expensive and much easier to keep running than a vintage computer.
The Clone is available fully assembled or in kit form. The kit requires installation and soldering of all switches, LEDs and resistors (surface mount components are pre-installed at the factory). The kit also leaves power supply wiring, serial port wiring and mechanical assembly for the user to complete."
The price is the same as the original base unit from 1976, a mere $621. David Greelish of The Classic Computing Blog recently interviewed the creator, and it's a fascinating chat.
