Build a re-creation of an historic Altair 8800 computer
Presenting the new Altair-Duino Pro version 3! Now including Mike Douglas's Altair Clone case for a dead-ringer lookalike of the original Altair 8800.
This Altair 8800 simulator comes with a VT100 e…
Presenting the new Altair-Duino Pro version 3! Now including Mike Douglas's Altair Clone case for a dead-ringer lookalike of the original Altair 8800.
This Altair 8800 simulator comes with a VT100 emulator (with VGA and USB keyboard support), DE9 serial connection, audio connection emulating a Processor Technology Music System card, and SD card for floppy drive/hard drive emulation.
I have also added support for David Hansel’s bus which enables the use of expansions cards. You can read more about the construction and use of expansion cards at Github:
THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY…
…is of little use to you? Do you long for the days of your youth when computers were new, and exciting (and perhaps useful only to those with the “know how”?) Or maybe the early days of computers were before you were even born, and you simply want to know what the big deal was? Or maybe you’re like me, a mere child when you first heard the notion that people could actually have a computer in their very own home!
I was a child of 9 years old when the Altair 8800 was announced on the pages of Popular Electronics magazine in January of 1975. It captured my imagination – and I knew that someday I would build and own my own computer. I never did get an Altair 8800 – the computer revolution was started and it moved FAST. The heyday of the Altair lasted only a short while. The first computer I built was 7 years later when I built the Sinclair ZX81 kit.
Well imagine my surprise 42 years later when David Hansel of Brookline, MA published his Ardunio-based Altair 8800 emulator project on hackster.io! I knew this was my chance to finally build an Altair 8800!
Once I saw David’s code and design, I knew I could improve on it and make an affordable, easy-to-build kit. My first “beta-testers” were my 12 and 14 year old sons! Yes, you can still follow David’s original plan if you wish. If you want a ready-to-go kit, look no further!
This is my newly-released "Pro" version of the kit. It includes a lookalike case designed by Mike Douglas and an I/O expansion board with VT100 emulation, RS232 serial port, audio jack (emulating the Processor Technology Music System), and power jack. The kit also include a micro SD card with productivity software and games for Microsoft BASIC, Altair DOS, CP/M, and more.
This is a cycle-accurate recreation of the original Altair 8800. What does that mean? It means the Intel 8080 CPU is emulated, as is some of the basic I/O (disk drives, serial ports, etc.) but everything else is REAL Altair machine code and CP/M that was created more than 40 years ago!
Original Altair 8800
Dimensions: 17″ x 7″ x 18″
Weight: depends on cards loaded, but generally around 65 lbs.
RAM: 64KB maximum
Storage: Cassette tape, Paper tape, 8" floppy, 5.25" floppy, 5MB hard drive
Altair-Duino
Dimensions: 17″ x 7″ x 18″
Weight: 9 lbs with acrylic case.
RAM: 512KB (64KB maximum for Altair emulation, the rest used as storage for Altair programs and utilities.)
Storage: Micro SD card with megabytes of classic software included (CPM, Altair DOS, BASIC)
Built-in VT100 emulator
Includes everything you need to build a fully-functional re-creation of the Altair 8800 computer (professionally made printed circuit board, all components, pre-programmed Arduino Due, bound color assembly instructions and operations manual, replica case, and more). It can connect to a standard ASCII serial terminal, a VGA monitor and USB keyboard (for VT100 emulation), or you can use a serial emulator (PuTTY or Tera Term) on your laptop. (Note: expansion cards pictured above are not included with this kit.)
Assembly will require intermediate soldering skills (all through-hole components) and can be completed in 5-6 hours.
Due to the size, international shipping will be very expensive. I would suggest looking at the shelf-friendly (and budget-friendly) Altair-Duino Experimenter. It can be shipped to most international locations for only $39.
I've made a much older version of this kit years ago, with a bamboo box. I love it, and decided recently to pick up a new and improved version. It arrived quickly and I got to work putting it together, but unfortunately I realized that I didn't put the header pins on the right way around (you're supposed to have the long ends sticking out towards where the arduino will be mounted), and the arduino didn't make good enough contact with the PCB, making it unusable. While that is absolutely my fault, I will say that I think the manual should include some warnings to double check critical components such as that before committing to soldering them, not just a picture of the arduino with the pins on it. Ultimately however it would probably be best to do this kit in breaks, as at least for me I tend to zone out and not pay as much attention after spending long periods soldering.
I reached out to Chris over email and asked him if I could send my kit in for repair, as I did not know at the time that you could simply cut the header pin plastic separators off and then desolder each pin much more easily. He quickly responded and agreed to have it sent over. Unfortunately UPS lost my board during shipping, and after I got the insurance check I ordered another PCB and set of components to make a new board. I've learned a lot from that experience.
Here's a few suggestions:
Make sure you pay close attention to the color and type of your toggle switches, as well as which direction you solder them! There's no going back once you commit. Top row of switches should on/off toggles, as well as the power switch on the bottom row. The bottom row of switches however is a series of momentary toggles.
There's no mention of which side the 47uF capacitor should face, but you should pay close attention to the picture and make sure the side with the line is oriented properly.
On my first PCB I found that the LEDs didn't sit flush. With the new PCB I found that if I gently shook the LEDs once they had already dropped into the front panel, they'd seat better. Then I just used my tweezers to gently guide the remaining ones down so that all of them fit flush in the panel. I found that soldering one side at a time kept the components from getting hot, especially the header pins, sockets, LEDs, and capacitors, so it might be a good idea to do them just like the toggle switches later on in the manual. It also makes it easier to keep the LEDs in alignment.
If you ever need to remove header pins you simply cut the plastic off with your cutters, then heat the solder up and use tweezers to gently push out the pin. Afterwards you can use some flux on the pin and solder wick to suck up the solder. You may want to go back and hit it with your solder sucker as well to remove any remaining solder from the pin so that a new header will fit. Don't tug if the pin doesn't want to come out, and do not let your iron sit too long on the joint. You can risk damaging the pad. If the pin isn't coming free try using more flux and adding more solder.
For removing the switches you can add enough solder to bridge the three terminals, then heat it up and gently rock the switch out. Afterwards do the same thing as you would after removing header pins to clean up the holes. You will destroy the switch, but it will be removed.
Jayson |
Nov. 27, 2023
Good kit with a few hiccups
I built an older version 1.5.2 I had over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Very nice kit and the inclusion of a printed manual was extremely welcome. Soldering all the components onto both boards was very easy. However, I have to deduct one star from the case assembly. Going in the order of operations of putting the I/O panel on and then the back acrylic didn't work well for me, resulting in me cracking one piece. Much easier to fit the PCB in afterward. Then the black cover for the I/O ports was off a bit. The holes for the mounting bolts were almost 1/8" of an inch off between the back acrylic and the black cover, and the SD card port needed to be opened up about 1/16" of an inch more to fit.
One thing I'll say to any prospective buyers is once this is fully assembled, it's going to be challenging and fiddly to open up and make changes, so I feel very committed to my dip switch settings now. There's no easy way to just pop part of it off to change things.
Terry |
May 19, 2022
Bloody marvelous and great fun!
A wonderful and nostalgic project. I thoroughly enjoyed building this kit! I'm back to simpler times in the computer world!
Thank you! :)
Marco |
March 21, 2021
Beautiful kit to build
Received this kit, it was fun to build it. Documentation was really good and easy to build. Now going back in time and start programming it. Highly recommended:-)
Masaki |
Feb. 10, 2021
Lots of soldering, but lots of fun awaits
The kit was received in tightly packed box. Comes with detailed instruction book. Prepare to do a lot of soldering. Compared to solder job I used to do 35 years ago, the solder pads are smaller, component leads are thinner and my eyes are ailing so it was tad difficult to do good soldering job. Then there are tons of mechanical switches to solder on the board, which seem to demand insatiable amount of solder. My initial work had several missed solder joints on control board, a couple of bridged solder points on Arduino area that resulted in misbehaving of the board (switch not recognized, LED not turning on etc.,) . Luckily I had a good magnifying loupe to inspect the PCB and was able to retouch those problem area. Also pay a good attention to jumpers that need to be in place. Those are clearly shown in the picture of instruction book but somehow I missed one jumper that needed to be inserted.
Once assembled, kit is fun to play with. A computer with toggle switches have some attraction even compared to the ones with HEX keypad. I re-lived the time of toggling in the Octal codes to enter a program to micro computer. How were we able to afford such a laborious method!? Then once configured for CP/M boot with Z80 emulation and communicating with terminal program on my PC, I was able to XM.com to receive Turbo pascal 3 and was writing Hello World as I was doing many years ago.
Highly recommended.
Graham |
Feb. 4, 2021
Its a beautiful thing.
Always wanted to find one of these to renovate. Then found this gorgeous replica. Its fits the bill perfectly. Beautifully designed and functions perfectly, and has so many features built in. If you are true retro lover and retro programmer you will spend many evenings having fun programming this beauty.
Willem |
Jan. 5, 2021
A joy to build and use.
The kit has excellent documentation and is a well designed and logically laid out. The Pro case is like putting together a lego and is half the project. My kit was missing the SD module and Chris sent one right away. Great quality and customer service overall.
Richard |
Dec. 15, 2020
Awesome in a box!
A professional and well documented kit that is so satisfying to build and operate. Loved the way it came boxed. Assembly is straightforward. LED positioning is tricky so take it in groups. The switches are a bit hard to push into the board but line up great when done. Only issue I had was inserting on of the IC chips. Really my fault and not the kit. The case is very well designed and gives the project a really cool retro look. Mine worked right after completing assembly with no issues. Overall this is such a cool kit!
John |
April 29, 2020
This is a great kit. The construction video is really good.
The parts went together very well. I have not tested it yet as I had to order a keyboard and monitor.
John D
Chris |
Feb. 11, 2020
What a kit!
Just a fantastic experience building this kit. The instructions are very clear and the PCBs (there are two in the Pro kit) are clearly laid out and marked. The quality of the acrylic sheets and the overall design are superb. I love the attention to detail while ensuring that the completed kit is relatively compact. I found the Pro kit strong enough to hold my older Dell LCD monitor which works well with the VGA VT-100 emulation.
The implementation of the emulator is very nice and feature rich. Lots of software comes with the device, so you can be booted into CP/M and playing games or programming in Assembly rather quickly after completing the hardware. Of course, you can also just play Kill The Bit, either by requesting the in-ROM version or switching it in manually -- which you should do, for full effect.
Cannot recommend enough for anyone with a love for retro computing.
Arnaud |
Nov. 30, 2019
Simply put, an amazing recreation of the Altair 8800!
A fantastic product. Package was delivered in very good conditions and the various parts were very well protected. When opening it I was very impressed at the documentation coming with it - whic allowed me to build the complete unit in a few hours (my only mistake was the soldering on the SD reader on the wrong place... leading to some painful unsoldering minutes). The case for the Pro version is quite easy to assemble as well and the result looks absolutely great on my desk. System works like a charm and I was able to start loading some programs within minutes after starting up the first time. Thanks a ton Chris for the amazing work. Looking fwd to the next ideas!
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