Altair 8800 Arduino Clone - A Closer Look (Incl CP/M & Zork)

[@tdumnxy]

I played a version of Zork on my C=64 in the eighties. In '75 I played Lunar Lander on a teletype terminal, no screen just paper output. It was on a remote USAF mainframe via dial-up at 300 baud! Had to go to a mall or motel to play a video game like Tank. It was as exciting then as any modern Xbox or PS game today.

[@PandemoniumMeltDown]

Anything serious had to be done on a mainframe in the 70's :D like the AutoCAD ancestor, that was a blast, so enourmous, and so expansive per hour in energy cost and maintenance.

[@xc_gwpl]

I wish you did more content like this

[@shakacat3180]

I don't know much about things like that but looks really fun 🐱

[@Petertronic]

Text adventures were so great. You built the pictures of where you were in your imagination. A lot of the fun was in drawing maps as you played. When graphics started being added to the games, they were WORSE, because they cut the descriptive text down to a bare minimum to make room for the awful graphics!

[@PaulLemars01]

I have to build this. I need to play Zork! I'm 64 years old and I've been working with microcomputers (PC's) my entire career. You know what would be really cool? If the Arduino could trigger audio samples on maybe a daughter arduino of the old Shugart eight inch floppy drives whenever it did a read, write or seek. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our new overpowered desktops but the old machines used to clank and clonk when they worked.

[@OriginalDonutposse]

I found an emulator online a long time back that was an infocom emulator - and it came with every infocom title (with the text of the hint books too)! Enchanted. Sorcerer. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Zork 1-2-3. I was thrilled. It should still be around and updated, but I ran the emulator on some form of windows computer.

[@albertlotito3202]

I remember a trs-80 model 1 game where they asked one to put an am radio, tuned to a certain frequency, next to the computer, for audio. LOL!!!

[@markjwilcox]

@Atomic Shrimp - Wow. How good to see old-school games running. That Ladder games looks very much like the game Chuckie Egg from the 80s. Takes me back.

[@kathrynillsley7557]

Watching this- the enormous time and effort for tiny reward- makes me amazed that computers weren’t abandoned as a developmental dead end.

[@AtomicShrimp]

Visionaries, really - people who could see beyond what it was, to what it could become. Also, don't underestimate the labour saving utility of being able to do simple, but tiresome maths repeatedly and quickly

[@MrEmiosk]

To be fair. The sheer multi step calculations you can punch in on the front panel itself, makes this brick really useful. Hook it to a serial printer and you could get something not only a code wiz could read. Sure it is tedious to plan a program, but once you had it up and ready it could process a lot of numbers. And once dumb terminals became cheap enough, they had already made 4k Basic (which was made to be used on teletype writers (which acted like a terminal, and ate paper like it was going out of fashion)) But ww2 kinda established how useful a fully functioning computer was, it was just not affordable money or space wise by the private person to own a computer until the Altair shipped. And outside of businesses it really had no use outside of hobbyists playing around the first couple of years (since reading & writing machinecode wasn't a layman's language)

[@PandemoniumMeltDown]

I kinda got used to the way you move the Cans full of Weird Stuff so much it's even hard to pause to read the label but, I admit, I was genuinely scared for that huge coffee mug safety. You are clearly a very skilled and precise gesticulator. Hats off.

[@PandemoniumMeltDown]

Ah! you just demonstrated the next requirement of your enclosure: a front "road bar" system that would look like two side handles of any rack mount module. Just as an enemple: img.canuckaudiomart.com/uploads/large/1061361-pair-new-5-inch-rack-mount-handle-kit-preamp-power-amp-tuner.jpg This way, like you stopped yourself from putting the unit on it's "face" on the table, your buttons will be protected and you'll have the possibility to do put the unit on it's face :D

[@SimonBuchanNz]

I love that CP/M just gives you a bad command back with a question mark.

[@debb3249]

Hi, ☺ Brilliant I really enjoyed that. Thanks.

[@YukoValis]

heh. Nice IT crowd reference. : )

[@wisteela]

I didn't spot it. Now I'm wondering what it was.

[@GrandadsOtherChannel]

Ah, text games. I have been searching for one I wrote back in the 80s and used to bundle with other software for the Dragon 32 & 64. It was relatively short and featured some of my workmates at the time. I originally wrote it at work on one of the RAIR Black Box computers that we used at the time. Over the years I seem to have lost any copies I had. I am sure I had converted it to MBASIC.

[@AtomicShrimp]

You had a Dragon 32? I remember jealously looking at one of those in the shop window, knowing I would never afford it

[@AlistairBrugsch]

@grandadsOtherChannel maybe contact Neil at Retro Man Cave (KZbin channel) as he's collecting a load of Dragon32 stuff. He also has access to the Swindon computer museum basement which has shelves and shelves of unsorted donations (I've seen it first hand. It's a sight for sure!)

[@JohnDoe-ir8te]

Hey! I know somebody who has created an Arduino Z80 clone EXACTLY like this! Execpt with more buttons ^^

[@1pcfred]

Zork looks like the Colossal Cave adventure game. Wikipedia claims that Zork was inspired by Adventure. Apparently Zork is far more sophisticated though.

[@nijeri]

If I had the chance to play Zorg, I'd probably play it forever. I'm quite a fan of those text-based games.

[@PandemoniumMeltDown]

You really need a Comodore 64 ;)

[@timb9390]

web-adventures.org/cgi-bin/webfrotz?s=ZorkDungeon

[@nijeri]

@@KrispyKremeIsMaking I actually haven't so thanks!

[@wisteela]

Superb

[@nwrth]

The IT Crowd!

[@YepImOnTV]

This is neat

[@ian.M440]

Another great vid 👍

[@TheWinnieston]

I have the adwater version, but the disk doesn't boot at switch 12 like yours did. I am confused.

[@GeoNeilUK]

I wonder how far the Altair 8800/S-100 technology could have gone?

[@dannydetonator]

Just like eating WW2 rations. Could ask for contents and specifications, but could just not resist shouting: *¡I'm first!* First watching someone playing an Altair. Wait, someone shurely done that before...

[@AtomicShrimp]

The weirdest part of this is knowing that the laptop on which I am running the terminal is many times more capable than either the original Altair or this emulator. I'm going to build a physical 'terminal' soon - it won't be authentic, but it might look and feel a bit more appropriate

[@dannydetonator]

@@AtomicShrimp I'd guess some smart-watch is more powerfull than this, although i never seen one before. I'm from ex-USSR and as it's near-impossible to source-out transistors to make a board like they used to, that might be the place to look. (If you want authentic components)🙈

[@PiepsiPanic]

Too bad that Altair 8800 panel is no longer available. :( The above linked seller only offers a different one now, it doesn't look like that well-known 8800 panel like that one featured in this video. Does anybody here know another ressource to get one of these?

[@AtomicShrimp]

If you contact him, he might make one of these to order for you

[@PiepsiPanic]

@@AtomicShrimp Thanks a lot for your reply and your suggestion, I'll give it a try. :)

[@railwaymaniac]

in 2024 you can still contact "The High Nibble" and get a kit of the IMSAI 8080, which was a clone of the Altair back in the day ! 😀

[@DrexProjects]

Makes me want to pull the ZX81 out of the closet. Matter a fact, I will.

[@AtomicShrimp]

My first computer was an unexpanded ZX81. My classmates at school didn't believe I had a computer

[@gommechops]

I wish I still had the ZX81 we had, not actually sure what happened to it. I think my dad took it back to the shop because the Spectrum was coming and he wasnt happy with it, a month or so later he bought me the spectrum for Christmas. Now that I still have and, like you this has made me want to go dig that out and set it up properly!

[@cyberia55]

The link in the description leads to a valid user, but he has no items for sale.

[@AtomicShrimp]

His inventory does ebb and flow a bit. I originally found him via a sold item search on eBay and I messaged him - he was in the process of making more items to sell

[@thetalkingfist9482]

As a Gen Z I find this really adorable

[@mattdoesyoutube9000]

He was likely to be eaten by Gru

[@YukoValis]

>Put gem in mouth. Should work in every game : )