Planet Arduino

The Altair 8800 is one of the most important machines in computer history and many consider it to be the first personal computer. But not many computer users today would recognize it as such. At release, it couldn’t even output video and users could only interact with the Altair 8800 through a terminal or the front panel. Now you can relive history by emulating an Altair 8800, complete with front panel, on your Arduino Mega.

The front panel on the Altair 8800 contained several status lights and toggle switches. Those are cryptic when compared to our modern graphical interfaces, but the Altair 8800’s front panel was integral for working with the machine. Users would load programs and even key in bootloaders using the front panel. The panel would also give you useful debugging information, such as if data was moving from one memory address to another. Interacting with that front panel is a necessity if you want to get the full Altair 8800 experience.

This Instructables tutorial explains how you can do that using just an Arduino Mega and your computer — no other hardware is necessary. After flashing the provided code, the emulator will boot into MITS Altair 4k BASIC, which was Microsoft’s first software and was coded by Bill Gates himself (along with two other programmers). You can communicate with the emulator through the Arduino serial monitor, similar to how a ’70s computer user would have used a terminal. The serial monitor will also display an ASCII representation of the Altair 8800’s front panel that reacts to your actions and programs.

If you’ve ever wanted to experience the Altair 8800 for yourself, this is a great way to do so.

The post Emulate the legendary Altair 8800 on your Arduino Mega appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Browse around eBay for an original Altair 8800 and you quickly find that the price range is in the thousands of dollars. If you are a collector and have some money in your pocket maybe that’s okay. But if you want the Altair 8800 experience on a budget, you can build yourself a clone with an Arduino. [David] kindly shared the build details on his Arduino Project Hub post. Using an Arduino Due (or a Mega for 25% of original speed), the clone can accurately reproduce the behavior of the Altair’s front panel elements. We covered a similar project in the past, using the Arduino Uno.

While not overly complicated to build one, you will need a fair amount of patience so you can solder all the 36 LEDs, switches, transistors, and resistors but in the end, you’ll end up with a brand new computer to play with.  In 1975, an assembled Altair 8800 Computer was selling for $621 and $439 for an unassembled version. Sourced right, your clone would be under 50 bucks. Not bad.

The simulator comes with a bunch of software for you to try out and even games like Kill-the-Bit and Pong. BASIC and Assembler example programs are included in the emulator software and can easily be loaded.

In addition, the simulator includes some extra functions and built-in software for the Altair which are accessible via the AUX1/AUX2 switches on the front panel (those were included but not used on the original Altair). From starting different games to mount disks in an emulated disk drive, there are just too many functions to describe here. You can take a look at the simulator documentation for more information.

In case you don’t know already, here’s how to play Kill-the-Bit: