10 Facts About Altair 8800

Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU.

The Altair 8800 is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer.

The computer bus designed for the Altair 8800 was to become a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair 8800 BASIC.

Altair 8800 was impressed with Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter article and wanted computer projects for Popular Electronics.

The finished Altair 8800 computer had a completely different circuit board layout than the prototype shown in the magazine.

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Altair 8800 thought the Intel 4004 and Intel 8008 were not powerful enough ; the National Semiconductor IMP-8 and IMP-16 required external hardware; the Motorola 6800 was still in development.

The Altair 8800 had enough power to be actually useful, and was designed as an expandable system that opened it up to all sorts of applications.

Altair 8800's company was Processor Technology, one of the most successful Altair compatible board suppliers.

Altair 8800 then looked for a cheap source of connectors, and came across a supply of 100-pin edge connectors.

Altair 8800 called the company and reached a private home, where no one had heard of anything like BASIC.