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, a faithful reproduction of this hallowed machine with a fully 3D faceplate. I took some 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 as possible - at least, according to Google Images since I've never seen one in person. This device 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 revolutionary geniuses like 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 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. All I know is, making that rad 70s font from scratch was a lot of fun - and there were some interesting typefaces back then. Anyway, comments are welcome!