Microsoft returns to the Altair
The Altair 8800 arguably kickstarted Microsoft. Now [Dave Glover] from Microsoft offers emulated and potentially cloud-based Altair emulation with CP/M and Microsoft Basic. You can see a video of the project below. One thing that makes it a bit odd compared to other Altair clones we've seen is that the emulator runs in a Docker environment and is fully cloud-enabled. You can interact with it through a PCB front panel or a terminal running in a web browser.
The main emulator is MIT licensed and seems to work almost everywhere. We were a little surprised that there wasn't an instance in the Azure cloud that you could spin up to test. A few hundred Altairs running at the same time surely wouldn't dent a modern CPU.
There are many Altair emulators and even replicas with genuine processors. But we have to admit that the Wiki documentation on this one is exceptionally well done. Even if you don't want to use this emulator, you might find the Altair data collection useful.
Not sure how to use the front panel of a computer? Learn about the Altair or a PDP/8, even if you don't have a real one. For simulated hardware, the project that turns an Arduino Due into an Altair works well. If you just want to play Zork, you can do that in your browser, of course.
The Altair 8800 arguably kickstarted Microsoft. Now [Dave Glover] from Microsoft offers emulated and potentially cloud-based Altair emulation with CP/M and Microsoft Basic. You can see a video of the project below. One thing that makes it a bit odd compared to other Altair clones we've seen is that the emulator runs in a Docker environment and is fully cloud-enabled. You can interact with it through a PCB front panel or a terminal running in a web browser.
The main emulator is MIT licensed and seems to work almost everywhere. We were a little surprised that there wasn't an instance in the Azure cloud that you could spin up to test. A few hundred Altairs running at the same time surely wouldn't dent a modern CPU.
There are many Altair emulators and even replicas with genuine processors. But we have to admit that the Wiki documentation on this one is exceptionally well done. Even if you don't want to use this emulator, you might find the Altair data collection useful.
Not sure how to use the front panel of a computer? Learn about the Altair or a PDP/8, even if you don't have a real one. For simulated hardware, the project that turns an Arduino Due into an Altair works well. If you just want to play Zork, you can do that in your browser, of course.
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