MITS Keyboard

[forfar4]

Hello,
I have a couple of Altairs - an 8800 and 8800a. One of them came with a keyboard but I have not been able to find any information about it - there is a label on the underside as shown but I would have expected to find something about the additional hardware. accessories but no luck. This keyboard appears to be the genuine article, evident wear to the corners, so this thing has had some good use in its day. Anybody come across one of these or know something more about it? I would say this was pre Pertec going by the branding but the label while in some respects resembles that found on the computers, it is slightly different - no reference to Creative Electronics or logo. The key arrangement is also unusual - custom made?

 

[VERAULT]

Hi Fofar4 and welcome to our forum.

I think you made the mistake of making the same post twice in two different places.

 

[ajacocks]

Duplicate fixed!

- Alex

 

[snuci]

I am curious what card that was connected to. Makes sense that they would resell a keyboard at some point. I had personally never seen one before with a MITS label on it.

 

[wperko]

Hi,

What would be nice is to document exactly what each key OUTPUT is on the end of the cable. It would be fairly easy to connect to a PICAXE chip to read the parallel bits, displaying the ASCII as well as numeric codes for each Key, Shit+Key, Ctrl-Key etc.

That way we could perhaps build reproduction versions for our own Altair's ...

.

 

[Chuck(G)]

MITS Altair COMTER II:

The Computer Church: The .

A collection of over 1,000 computer related items, including 200 vintage computers, that span more than 100 years of computing history...from the 1830's to the 1990's.

www.thecomputerchurch.org

Stupidly expensive for what it was. Same keyboard used for the CT-256: (h/t DeRamp):

Spelling variation between "COMTER" (above) and "COMPTER" (CT-256)

 

[forfar4]

I am curious what card that was connected to. Makes sense that they would resell a keyboard at some point. I had personally never seen one before with a MITS label on it.

Strange thing is there is no card in the Altair 8800a it came with to facilitate connection - was just thrown in with the purchase!

 

[forfar4]

MITS Altair COMTER II:

The Computer Church: The .

A collection of over 1,000 computer related items, including 200 vintage computers, that span more than 100 years of computing history...from the 1830's to the 1990's.

www.thecomputerchurch.org

Stupidly expensive for what it was. Same keyboard used for the CT-256: (h/t DeRamp):

Spelling variation between "COMTER" (above) and "COMPTER" (CT-256)

Chuck(G), thank you for this, great to have some background on it as I was hitting dead ends. It seem well built and quality kit for its time - I estimated 1976/77. The cable is quite rigid. It is strange why there are no references to the Compter in any MITs related articles when discussing the Altair? I had no idea this existed!!

 

[forfar4]

Chuck(G), thank you for this, great to have some background on it as I was hitting dead ends. It seem well built and quality kit for its time - I estimated 1976/77. The cable is quite rigid. It is strange why there are no references to the Compter in any MITs related articles when discussing the Altair? I had no idea this existed!!

So, there is actually a fair amount of literature/brochure on it...still, would think there would be some mention of the other MITs products when covering the 8800. Anyway, thank you, nice to see the price lists and MITs brochures.

 

[forfar4]

Hi Fofar4 and welcome to our forum.

I think you made the mistake of making the same post twice in two different places.

Apologies I thought the S100 thread would be a better fit. Thank you.

 

[Chuck(G)]

They were overpriced and therefore, very uncommon. Perhaps a case of unfortunate timing, just when CRT models were getting to be affordable.