I've been playing with my Altair 8800 lately. It's something I've had for a while, but never got around to doing anything with besides some front panel games (to be explained further below, if you're not familiar). Recently though, I'v dug it out of storage and decided to really sit down and learn how to use it, at a fundamental level.

Claude has been extremely helpful in this project; being a computer from the mid 70s, manuals and documentation are sparse and jargon-laden, and docs on the chipset even moreso. LLMs are, despite their flaws, excellent tutors.

I probably owe you an explanation on what an Altair 8800 is before going further, so let's get that out of the way.

The First Home Computer

The Altair 8800 was the first 'home computer' of any real note. Sold through Popular Electronics in kit form by MITS of New Mexico, it was extremely barebones, little more than an Intel 8080 and some memory jammed in a box. By modern standards it stretches the definition of the word "computer". Still, its entrance into the market is widely considered to have kicked off the computer revolution.

The Altair 8800, as mentioned previously, does not have much going for it in ease of use. It consists of a front panel of 16 data & address switches, 9 function switches, and a total of 36 lights that give you a glimpse into its execution state.