[HN Gopher] Altair at 50: Remembering the first Personal Computer
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Altair at 50: Remembering the first Personal Computer
Author : rbanffy
Score : 87 points
Date : 2025-05-02 11:03 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.goto10retro.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.goto10retro.com)
| berlinbrowndev wrote:
| Cool I always thought the first PCs were like the TRS or
| Commodore 64 computers.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There is some controversy - you could actually use a TRS-80, an
| Apple II or a PET right after taking it out of the box.
|
| I think that, if we define a personal computer as a machine
| that is designed for a single interactive user, the LGP-30
| would be a good candidate. It was not, however, a home
| computer.
|
| For me, a personal computer needs more than switches and LEDs
| as its UI. With a serial port, a terminal, and a monitor
| program in ROM, the Altair would qualify.
| anthk wrote:
| TRS-80, AII and the PET came later. You were right on the
| peripherals. Instead of a serial port, I'd set a TV output
| with a keyboard as an input, and the Altair would get far
| more sales.
| fortran77 wrote:
| The people I know who put together Altairs in 1975 used
| ASR-33 teletypes as terminals to run BASIC.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Teletype and all, the Altair looked and worked like an
| cut-down entry-level version of the minis that were
| popular in engineering and science.
|
| Not as powerful as a PDP-8, but less than a tenth of the
| price.
|
| It was the perfect aspirational project for the
| electronics hobbyist community of the time.
|
| The fact that you could barely do anything with it wasn't
| the point. It was a real computer you could set up at
| home and use without time restrictions or hourly billing.
|
| The S-100 bus market turned into a preview of the PC
| market. S-100 systems soon sprouted real terminals,
| floppy drives, and workable memory, and began to appear
| in the offices of accountants and other non-tech
| professionals.
|
| The IBM PC probably wouldn't have happened without it. It
| normalised relatively affordable computing, and the idea
| of a third party market of expansion cards on a standard
| bus.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A TV output means you need to create (and have memory
| dedicated to) the video. A serial port is much simpler.
| rbanffy wrote:
| A 16x64 character screen like the TRS-80 needed 1k of
| RAM. IIRC, the Altair didn't have that much memory out of
| the box.
|
| The video memory would either be in the computer or the
| terminal. At least if it were in the computer, you could
| use it for other stuff.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Did it not have a serial port? Would have assumed that
| connecting it to a terminal or teletype was the standard
| thing.
| whartung wrote:
| My first computing experience was with an IMSAI 8080 that
| class assembled the year before.
|
| It had a keyboard and video board, rather than a terminal.
| The monitor was open chassis to boot (ah the old days when
| we didn't protect children from lethal electricity).
|
| It had a ROM monitor and cassette tape. You had to type in
| (in hex) a short machine language program into the monitor
| to load BASIC from a cassette. We simply never turned it
| off.
|
| I tried ti enter the bootstrap through the front panel
| once, but I made some mistake, and it didn't work. It was
| an awful enough experience I never tried again.
| jmount wrote:
| Ah man- the power supply in the IMSAI 8080 was scary
| enough, plus you had the monitor power supply open. Fun
| times- the "book" sequence on ours was "fat finger in the
| paper tape reading software, read the cassette IO
| software from paper tape, load BASIC from cassette, and
| good to go."
| ebruchez wrote:
| One of the interesting aspects of the Altair was that it
| was based on a bus called the S-100 bus. You would have a
| CPU card and a memory card at least, but everything else
| was optional. The serial board was separate, and strictly
| not absolutely necessary to play with the computer, since
| you could enter simple programs directly from the front
| panel.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I remember S-100 from when I was a kid. Never was hands-
| on with that hardware but there were all kinds of ads for
| cards in Byte magazine and others. Seemed like you could
| get a card for almost anything in S-100 protocol.
| ebruchez wrote:
| That's right. There are still S-100 enthusiasts who are
| maintaining and developing S-100 cards, see
| http://www.s100computers.com/ (does not seem to respond
| correctly to HTTPS right now).
| maj0rhn wrote:
| We had an Altair at home, that my father assembled from a
| kit. That version did not have a serial port. It had only
| the switches on the front panel. I did succeed in inputting
| some programs and in having them run. But of course it was
| appallingly limited.
|
| The serial port was its own separate board.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaYTd3dbXeM
|
| There were two very clever I/O ideas that emerged for the
| Altair: (1) A radio on top of the housing would pick up a
| signal, allowing audio output! (2) A cassette tape recorder
| could be used as an external storage device, though I
| forget how it interfaced... the serial board, I think.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| keep the historical context in mind. There were people who
| wanted a computer at home and people who wanted to bring home
| the experience they got with access to powerful mainframe &
| minicomputers at work or school, so there was both a push to
| build your own computer and a desire to build IO devices like
| teletypes. The combo, all-in-one is the real revolution (IMO)
| that you got with the Apple II or the Sol. The TRS-80s and
| PETs feel a lot more like early commercialization in
| comparison. Woz was motivated by showing off what he could
| create, because that's how he communicated. It makes sense
| that a keyboard and TV - with graphics - shows off way
| better, same with being able to program in basic "... for
| $300 you can build a computer that's so good you can type
| programs on it and run them..."
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| You might want to look at the Sol-20, Micral N, and Kenbak-1 as
| well. From 1971, the Kenbak was a _personal_ computer, but not
| a personal _micro_ computer.
|
| The Wang 2200 looks most like we'd expect a personal computer
| to look like, but the price range was not home-friendly (~$50k
| today).
| chasil wrote:
| The Intel line was fathered by the Datapoint 2200; they
| implemented the CPU in TTL logic boards.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200
|
| The 6502 line came out Motorola's failure to "indulge" their
| employees in a low-cost 6800, thus unintentionally fathering
| MOS Technologies.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502
|
| The 6502 was extremely inexpensive. The first implementation
| was the KIM-1, so this is the first on that side.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIM-1
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Commodore had the PET in the late 70's, and the Vic-20 before
| the 64 in the early 80s.
|
| Apple had the II in the late 70s, and before that was the
| Altair.
| rahen wrote:
| "Personal computer" can refer either to a small-form computer,
| in which case the Olivetti P101 was likely the first in 1965
| (the PDP-8/E was also a contender), or to a microprocessor-
| based computer, in which case the Micral N holds that title in
| 1973.
|
| The Altair, in 1975, was the first commercially successful
| personal microcomputer.
| igtztorrero wrote:
| The Altair didn't survive for very long, but essentially being
| responsible for the creation of Microsoft is a pretty Big Deal.
|
| Bill Gates: "Popular Electronics" magazine cover of January 1975
| change my life"
|
| Paul Allen write the simulator on Harvard PDP-10, Bill Gates
| write main code of Basic, Monte Davidoff write Math package. They
| coded day and night during 2 months.
|
| Micro-Soft was born.
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| Similarly it inspired the start of Apple!
| rbanffy wrote:
| Apple got a couple things right - the II had a keyboard, TV
| output with graphics, and plug-and-play slots (no fiddling
| with jumpers and dip switches like s-100 and PCs): each card
| had a well defined space for IO and ROM.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Note that the Apple I was a kit computer that didn't come
| with anything other than the board and the chips. Not even
| a case! It's not really like Jobs and Woz had the brilliant
| idea that nobody had thought of before to include the
| accessories, it's just that the prices had come down to the
| point where a person wouldn't balk at buying a preassembled
| computer with a keyboard, display and a couple of floppy
| drives.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It's not really like Jobs and Woz had the brilliant
| idea
|
| They understood that, if the computer had a keyboard and
| a professional-looking case, a lot more people would buy
| one.
| Someone wrote:
| Jobs certainly understood that, but Woz?
|
| https://www.apple2history.org/history/ah04/:
|
| _"Jobs thought the cigar boxes that sat on the ...
| desktops during Homebrew meetings were as elegant as fly
| traps. The angular, blue and black sheet-metal case that
| housed Processor Technology's Sol struck him as clumsy
| and industrial ... A plastic case was generally
| considered a needless expense compared to the cheaper and
| more pliable sheet metal. Hobbyists, so the arguments
| went, didn't care as much for appearance as they did for
| substance. Jobs wanted to model the case for the Apple
| after those Hewlett-Packard used for its calculators. He
| admired their sleek, fresh lines, their hardy finish, and
| the way they looked at home on a table or desk."_
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Jobs certainly understood that, but Woz?
|
| This is why we need to surround ourselves with people we
| don't always agree with.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Altair didn't survive for very long,_
|
| The company sold itself to Pertec for what was a very good
| amount of money back then.
|
| In HN terms, it was a successful unicorn bro exit.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| and if I remember it correctly Roberts used the money to buy
| a peanut farm? Is that equivalent to a tech bro buying the
| coast of California or an island?
| bbarnett wrote:
| Did he use all the money, or some?
| reaperducer wrote:
| The property records are probably online. Go nuts.
| bbarnett wrote:
| My point was, buying a peanut farm != spending every
| penny you owned on the peanut farm. It simply could have
| been what he desired, enjoyed. He could have socked away
| way more.
|
| The comment I replied to alluded to said peanut farm
| being (forgive me) peanuts compared to a coastline.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| and the fact that MITS couldn't keep up with demand gave birth
| (IMO) to the 3rd party (licensed and unofficial) peripherals
| ecosystem.
| shakna wrote:
| I was completely distracted by the magazine cover. The calculator
| being advertised there, and the wording, caught my attention.
|
| The magazine issued is available here [0].
|
| Apparently, it really was wiring up an entire calculator.
|
| > ... Start assembly by installing and soldering into place the
| fixed resistors. Then proceed to installing the three
| electrolytic capacitors, the diodes, and the transistors, taking
| care to observe proper polarity and basing. Mount the transistors
| close to the board's surface...
|
| [0] https://archive.org/details/197501PopularElectronics
| hvs wrote:
| Until microcomputer boom of the 70's and 80's there was the
| calculator boom of the early 70's. The availability of the
| microprocessor made small calculators widely available for the
| first time and they were very popular among the type of people
| that probably would've read Hacker News had it existed.
| Sharlin wrote:
| What caught my eye was the headline about CCDs as successors to
| video camera tubes. Charge-coupled devices being, of course,
| the sensor technology now used by essentially all of the
| billions of digital cameras on the planet.
| MBCook wrote:
| Hasn't basically everyone switch from CCD to CMOS sensors
| these days?
|
| I don't know the technical difference other than what each
| stands for.
| danbruc wrote:
| Cost the equivalent of $2359 back then, right now you can get a
| few on eBay for around $5000. Or you can get a mini replica kit
| for $150. [1]
|
| [1] https://altairmini.com/en/home
| twoodfin wrote:
| Lest you worry you (or your parents) should have stashed away a
| few Altairs, that $397 in a tax-advantaged retirement account
| investing in the S&P 500 would be worth more than $70k today.
| NoSalt wrote:
| Wow ... the man who invented it, Ed Roberts, had quite the life:
| * Air Force enlisted * Air Force comissioned
| * Electrical Engineer * Computer inventor *
| "Gentleman" farmer * Medical doctor
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_(computer_engineer)
| pipes wrote:
| Bill Gates goes into this in his autobiography, source code.
| Paints a very positive picture of him.
| embedded_hiker wrote:
| My school library ( 6th - 8th grades ) had this magazine, and
| they had a 9-week class on programming in BASIC using a 110 bps
| teletype connected to an HP2000C that was shared by several
| school districts. That was my start in all of this. I didn't get
| my own computer until the C64 price dropped to $200 in 1983.
| CarVac wrote:
| My dad has an IMSAI 8080 which is a neat piece of hardware. It
| still works, though a few LEDs failed.
|
| Unfortunately for him, in university one of his professors
| advised him not to go into computers for a career...
| kabdib wrote:
| in 1977 or so my dad (a college professor) advised me not to go
| into computers
|
| a couple of decades later (i hadn't listened, and had been
| working for high-tech Silly Valley for quite a while) he
| apologized :-)
| jodydonetti wrote:
| Olivetti P101 (1965)
|
| https://www.fondazioneadrianolivetti.it/en/p101-cecam/
| pan69 wrote:
| It's an interesting one. Some people call it a Personal
| Computer others call it a calculator. However you classify it,
| it was certainly a interesting and important stepping stone and
| it's a shame that a lot of European innovations are often
| forgotten or skimmed over:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101
| mrcwinn wrote:
| For those interested in Ed Roberts, refer to Robert Cringely's
| "Triumph of the Nerds," in particular Volume 1.
| downut wrote:
| I cannot find it but I think for about a decade the music cart
| rotation at WREK was powered by a student built automation system
| on an Altair. Don't remember any faults in the years I was around
| it.
|
| (I was a music director at WREK in the early '80s)
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