SWTPC 6800 and Altair 680 kit documentation

[mountainking]

I picked up these docs a few months ago for next to nothing ($16 I think). I didn't know exactly what the collection was but it seemed like something that I should grab considering the price and well, I'm a sucker for inexpensive additions to my collection.

They are all ancient photocopies (can't remember what they called photocopies back then ). I kind of figured they were kit docs that you either sent away for or they came with the kit's hardware. Haven't looked around to see if this stuff is available online yet.

Anyway, I figured I'd post it and see if anyone knew anything about it?

 

[daver2]

Both of these are very early systems that could be purchased as kits or ready made equipment.

They were both constructed around the Mororola 6800 microprocessor.

The PCBs may even have been available as artwork for people to etch their own PCBs.

For examples see: https://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/altair680.html.

The documentation is largely available online, but you may have some gems in your set that is not currently available?

Dave

 

[mountainking]

Both of these are very early systems that could be purchased as kits or ready made equipment.

They were both constructed around the Mororola 6800 microprocessor.

The PCBs may even have been available as artwork for people to etch their own PCBs.

For examples see: https://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/altair680.html.

The documentation is largely available online, but you may have some gems in your set that is not currently available?

Dave

I know all about these two systems, what I was wondering about was what exactly these two documents represented, as in were they something that were included with hardware kits? Were they something that was connected to article (s) in a magazine that you could order separate from any physical kits?

 

[daver2]

The magazine article for the Altair 680 (Popular Electronics November 1975 onwards) described the equipment. However, the full-sized PCB artwork, schematics etc. were too large to be published in the magazine article and could be ordered separately.

I assume these would have been included with the kit itself.

I assume that your documentation may be a collection of articles/documents acquired from disparate sources.

As a result, I (for one) would be interested to read the collection you have acquired.

Perhaps identify any published materials from your documents if you can.

I will have a look later and see if I can see the full-sized PCB layouts and schematics if they exist on the Web.

This is the best 'stash' of documents I have found so far:
"https://deramp.com/downloads/mfe_archive/010-S100 Computers and Boards/00-MITS/99-Non-S100 Systems/Altair 680 family/".

For some reason (probably embedded spacing) the automatically generated link doesn't actually work. Only part of the URL has been linked to.

Dave

 

[syzygy]

I know all about these two systems, what I was wondering about was what exactly these two documents represented, as in were they something that were included with hardware kits? Were they something that was connected to article (s) in a magazine that you could order separate from any physical kits?

Is it from the yellow documentation notebook referenced here