Altair Collectors Association

From: cswiger <cswiger_at_wilma.widomaker.com>
Date: Tue Dec 8 11:48:06 1998

Hmmm.... Fascinating.

After reading some of the sentiments posted recently, what I'm
hearing is that the price of Altair's is a bubble without
underlying value, that is, they may be somewhat rare but aren't
really great machines, like a Ferarri or whatever, and that
the BASIC software for it wasn't very innovative.

I dunno, maybe there wouldn't be such interest if Micro-soft
hadn't become the juggernaught it is today, and MITS would have
been relegated to the dustbin of history.

However - I do see it as the 'Model-T' of PERSONAL computing -
sure everything had been done before but was usually priced
out of the average joe/jane's reach unless they worked in a
research institute or business, in which case they weren't
always allowed free reign to do whatever they wanted.

Also the Altair was a very open hardware platform, you had
the schematics, you got the educational experience of
actually building and usually repairing it; the more
experienced could add just about anything they could dream
of plus all the published construction articles one could
build on their kitchen table without applying for a govt.
research grant.

I'll yield the floor now but more later ;O


        Chuck
        cswiger_at_widomaker.com
Received on Tue Dec 08 1998 - 11:48:06 GMT