The very first personal computers - How many are left?

From: steve <gkicomputers_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue Apr 8 16:26:01 2003

--- Vintage Computer Festival <vcf_at_siconic.com> wrote:

> > > Altair 8800
> > 500 (a,b,bt)
>
> Move it over one decimal place to the left. From
> what I know, about
> 50,000 Altair's of all models were produced.

50K? I doubt it, I have seen many Altairs and I think
the highest serial number was around three thousand
something (8800 and 8800A's),lets say 6K were made, I
find it hard to believe that MITs made another 44,000
B's and BT's by mid 1978 when the line was
discontinued. BT's were introduced in, what, late 77
after MITS was sold to Pertec. The line was
discontinued in less then a year because of lack of
sales (many better options were available at this
time). So I must assume not many BT's were sold, but I
have no serial number data to confirm this. I have
only seen 5 or so and most serial numbers were in the
hundreds, I think I saw one in the thousands.

I would guess not more then 10K were ever made (all
Altairs including the 680,Attache and Sherwood). If
you (or anyone for that matter) has serial number data
that disagrees with this conclusion please feel free
to correct me!
steve




>
> --
>
> Sellam Ismail
> Vintage Computer Festival
>
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Received on Tue Apr 08 2003 - 16:26:01 BST

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