MITS Altair 8800

thingiverse

Please consider subscribing to my YouTube page to see cool VR/360 tours of maps from video games: https://youtube.com/mintyfries This is my version of the MITS Altair 8800. I wanted to make as faithful a reproduction of this hallowed machine as I'm able, especially one which has a fully 3D faceplate. I did take a few liberties and didn't go through great pains to size it out properly, but I tried to make it as close to the real thing (or at least, Google Images of the real thing since I've never seen one in person) as possible. This is the device that started a revolution. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800. I first learned of this early personal computer from the book The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. It's a great book which goes through the early days of computing all the way up to the modern internet age, detailing the work of such revolutionary geniuses as Lady Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Doug Engelbart, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and many more less recognizable names. There are a few (read, many) inaccuracies in this model, as it has no internals. I also haven't yet added the fan vents in the back since I wasn't able to find a good picture of the back of the device, although I know there is a fan back there. I might eventually make another version which uses an Arduino or something to make real blinky-blinky lights, but I doubt I'll get around to making anything which functions quite like the original--I'm not that smart. All I know is, making that rad 70s font from scratch was a lot of fun. There were some interesting typefaces back then. Anyway, comments welcome!