Rebuilding an Altair

[Erik]

I have an Altair 8800 in my collection that was built a bit off-specification.

The person who assembled it did a fine job, but they used an aftermarket motherboard instead of the MITS 4 slot boards and used a rainbow ribbon cable instead of the white wires to connect the front panel to the bus and CPU card.

I want to rewire the bus and front panel to make it look "original" so that it becomes a more pristine example of the first 8800s built.

Does anyone know what type of wire was used on those bus connections? What guage is it and was it braided or solid core wiring?

Thanks!

Erik

 

[rocketman]

Eriic:

That Altair you were going to rebuild. Did it have a parasitic system Clock
Fix it kit installed on it as well. My origian ALtair 8800A had a a upgraded
mother board and I used a multicolored ribbon cable instead of those crappy little white wires MITS provided. If you bent then over a little they would break.

Funny if you have my orginal Altair ? Did you get it from anyone in upstate
NY ?

I sold my orginal machine to a RPI Profesor, when I upgraded to a ALtair 8800B model,

Cheers
John ...

 

[rocketman]

I meant to say it was a ALtair 8800 not a A.

 

[Erik]

I'm pretty sure I didn't get this from NY (although I'd have to dig to be sure.)

The guy that sold it to me did the wiring on an unfinished kit in the mid-1980s.

It doesn't have a clock kit but it did have a Pocessor Tech motherboard.

Sometime soon I need to actually finish that project!

E