Post a picture of your Altair.

[AltairClone]

I just emailed you a firmware update to try. After updating the firmware, go into the Configuration Monitor and change the baud rate from 110 to 91.7.
Let me know how it works!

Mike

[mail@gabrielegan.com]

Good heavens, that worked!

Mike has released a firmware update that fixes a problem that I may be alone in having. It's that running a old US Teletype terminal here in the UK, where the mains power is 240V at 50Hz, makes the Teletype run slowly. It's easy enough to turn 240V into 120V with a transformer, but Teletypes rely on the 60Hz US mains frequency for their timing of the incoming data. So, while a US Teletype will run on a 50Hz supply, it mistimes the incoming data and gets framing errors. Mike figured out that instead of expecting data at 110 baud a Teletype running on 50Hz mains instead of 60Hz would expect data at the utterly unique rate of 110 x 5/6 = 91.67 baud. So he updated the Altair clone firmware to offer this as a custom baud rate.

Where are you going to get customer service like that anywhere else in the world? Bravo and many thanks to Mike. Amazing stuff!

Gabriel Egan
Minimal Computing Lab, De Montfort University

[toml_12953]

Good heavens, that worked!

.... So he updated the Altair clone firmware to offer this as a custom baud rate.

Where are you going to get customer service like that anywhere else in the world? Bravo and many thanks to Mike. Amazing stuff!

Gabriel Egan
Minimal Computing Lab, De Montfort University

Indeed, Mike is one-of-a-kind. Always willing to help and has the extensive knowledge to actually do what he says he'll do. We're lucky to have such a guy who's interested in the same things we are!

Tom L

[mail@gabrielegan.com]

Wanted to show off our new 'Altair 8800' banner printed on one of our Teletypes. Thanks to Caterman for the program that prints this.

Gabriel Egan
Minimal Computing Lab
De Montfort University

[SpinneretSystems]

It's my first post here, so I thought I'd start off with some pics.

Mock-up photo of a vintage lab setup

Recent setup: IBM XT as terminal for Clone and original Altair. Clone has 60s vintage cassette recorder, original is equipped with Shugart 801 8" FDDs, FDC+, and paper tape reader/punch.

listing Star-Treck

[Caterman]

Just got my Sony D3 DAT working. A bit overkill but really easy to find the data on the tape with start ID's.
Plus using a DG90P tape on long play should give you approx 6 hours of data on one tape!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tor]

Hey I have a Sony DAT somewhere, hasn't been used since the 20th century I think - hadn't thought it could be used with my Altair Clone! Now that's an idea.. thanks!

[pngwen]

Here's my Altair stack. The radio, tape, TV combo was manufactured in 1978. It does a great job of recording and playing tapes, and has a great speaker to boot! Most importantly, its tapedeck has a counter, which is absolutely a must for using cassette tapes as storage media. I plan on building a TV Typerwriter (of the Don Lancaster variety), so that I can use that small monochrome CRT as a terminal.

[toml_12953]

13710003_10210059879638557_518981862559443342_n.jpg

Here's my Altair stack. The radio, tape, TV combo was manufactured in 1978. It does a great job of recording and playing tapes, and has a great speaker to boot! Most importantly, its tapedeck has a counter, which is absolutely a must for using cassette tapes as storage media. I plan on building a TV Typerwriter (of the Don Lancaster variety), so that I can use that small monochrome CRT as a terminal.

That's a great retro look! All those meters and controls really make your setup look like it's ready to get to work. I've always been a fan of lots of readouts, knobs and switches such as on the submarine Seaview or in space capsules.

Tom L

[virtualaltair]

Here is my Altair Clone running Remote CP/M (RCP/M) software. The RCP/M is connected to the internet using a GW312 Serial to Ethernet Server and accessed using Telnet.

Click on the image to see it correctly.

Tom