I had done a little with PDP11 in school and I could see that when there was a “freeze” some panel address lights were much brighter from being on more than the others. The managers would eventually reset and then everyone – up to 32 engineers, would start yelling and cursing as they lost all their work. And the person who was running the task with the problem could not tell either. They were developing all the tools that became standard later on, like the splines and such for defining surfaces.Īn ongoing problem on those multi-user systems was someone running a piece of code that “froze” everyone else. Each group on the 7N7 had one, Propulsion, Aero, Sound, Structures, Avionics, Flight Test, etc. When I was fresh out of school I worked at Boeing as a site manager for PDP-11 and VAX systems. Posted in classic hacks Tagged altair, imsai 8080 Post navigation We’ve seen other vintage computers made into PC cases before, too. The IMSAI was more or less an Altair and if you want the flavor of having your own without the expense, you can fire up a browser. There is talk of a “series two” that looks like a combination recreation and PC case, but the last update was a few years ago, so we doubt these ever actually shipped. has to break out the scope, but he eventually gets CP/M and Adventure running.Īlthough IMSAI went bankrupt in 1979, the name was bought and there is still a presence online today. We miss computers with switches and LEDs on a working front panel.Īs you might expect, with over two dozen videos, there’s a lot of detail.

The IMSAI is famous for being in the movie Wargames. You can see the second video below, but be sure to check out the others, too. He’s restoring the thing and there are 26 (and counting) videos of his progress. has one of these vintage computers that has been in storage for over 30 years. The clone had several improvements and MITS had difficulty filling orders for real Altairs, so they sold pretty well. When MITS introduced the Altair 8800–about 43 years ago–it spawned the first personal computer clone: the IMSAI 8080.

Imsai 8080 emulator