The '''Altair 8800''' was an American [[8080]]-based microcomputer introduced in 1975 that is widely considered the first real widely popular home computer. It was sold in kit form and fully assembled and had a characteristic front panel with LEDs. The Altair mainboard had no ICs at all, just S-100 bus (100-pin) edge connectors, so e.g. the CPU and memory were on separate cards.
In the beginning, an Altair was usually controlled via a 110-baud teletype (usually with a punched tape reader and punch for saving and loading data). Later there were also 8" disk drive adapter cards and graphics cards that could show color graphics on a screen.
The Altair could be programmed via its front panel (16 address LEDs and 8 data LEDs and accompanying toggle switches). To load e.g. CP/M from disk, one had to set the program counter to the disk ROM address. One can also use the front panel to key in a small boot loader that will load a program (e.g. a BASIC interpreter) from a connected serial terminal or teletype.
The SIMH emulator can also emulate an 8800.
The Altair 8800 started the dominance of 8080/Z80-based, CP/M-supporting microcomputers for the home market, which led to Amstrad including CP/M support in CPCs with disc drives and PCWs (although in 1985 CP/M use was already on the decline). And of course even the Commodore 128 that came out in 1985 could run CP/M thanks to a built-in Z80, so evidently it was not just Amstrad who were lusting after the huge CP/M software library, in particular business software.
==Links==