I thought about it long and hard. A fully configured Altair 8800c would be at least $1200 plus shipping to Australia from all the different component suppliers at least another $600. I would end up with a "real" system but some parts wouldn't quite be real. For example the floppy drives are emulated via a USB cable and a server running on a PC. It would be possible to add real 8" or 5 1/4" drives plus power supplies plus cases and cabling at great additional cost. At the end it would still be some hybrid system with some modern bits substituting the original components. I would have a nice S-100 bus system but it wouldn't be an authentic Altair 8800a. So I decided to go down the fully emulated path and looked at Mike Douglas's Altair 8800 clone and the Altair-Duino.
I ended up buying the Altair-Duino a very promising Arduino Due (ARM) based clone similar to Mike Douglas's clone but without the nice metal case. This Altair-Duino kit is affordable, is open source and has a powerful hardware platform. Now that I am retired I am time rich and money poor. :-) The "Standard" kit is $149.95: https://www.adwaterandstir.com/product/altair-8800-emulator-kit/ Strangely the website says there is no stock available from the guy himself, but Tindie has 4 in stock: https://www.tindie.com/products/kb0wwp/altair-duino-standard/?pt=ac_prod_search I can't wait for it to arrive. It is a long way from Minnesota to Western Australia. Covid-19 doesn't speed it up either. :-( Cheers Tom Hunter On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 1:12 AM Tapley, Mark B. via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Jul 23, 2020, at 10:15 PM, Tom Hunter via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org > <mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote: > > The easiest and more affordable path would be the Altair > 8800 clone but somehow I am more attracted to the non-emulated > implementation. > > Understood space, time, and money are always factors, but I’m curious > whether that’s an XOR function or a simple OR (which would be satisfied > with both)? Having played in software on “modern” hardware might be pretty > useful when it’s time to start bringing up the reproduction hardware. >
