n January 1975, Popular Electronics ran a cover story about a new computer for hobbyists. The Altair 8800 came as a kit and cost $439 (the equivalent of $1,778.58 in today’s dollars). It came with no on-board memory. You programmed it by entering Intel 8080 opcodes by hand via a series of switches on the front panel. Buying 4k of memory, the ability to read in programs from paper tape, and a teletype interface would increase the price 6 fold. You had to solder the thing together by hand. By comparison with the big university and corporate mainframes it was basically useless.
But Popular Electronics was the Make Magazine of its day and engineering schools had begun to require their graduates to learn some programming, so Forest Mims and Ed Roberts, the two guys in Albuquerque who’d put the Altair together, figured they could probably sell a few hundred in the first year to this emerging group of hackers avant la lettre…
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Diving into the Raspberry Pi RP2350, Python Survey Results and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
I was in graduate school when the Altair hit the streets. It would take the resources of three or four or more people to collectively put a machine together but when we did it was great. No more waiting to get time on the school’s mainframe and no log-time bills!
The Arduino has a running start on the Altair. I believe that just as the Altair led the way for the PC the Arduino will open the doors of embedded computing to everyone.
We really do live in a golden age. So many possibilities and opportunities to grab onto. What are you waiting for? Make something! It doesn’t get any better than this.
The beauty of the Arduino is its accessibility. I had tried playing around with microcontrollers and physical computing but as a person who hadn’t ever written a single line of code it didn’t really all come together for me until the Arduino (and Tom Igoe’s book Physical Computing.)
An inexpensive device with such ease of use and staggering versatility, an Arduino is a wonderful aid for people who want to create electronic devices to interact with but don’t necessarily have a huge base of electronic knowledge. For people like me it’s a wonder to behold.
Via a post on Adafruit: (Original post on Ideas for Dozens)
Today, the world of physical computing closely resembles the personal computer industry circa 1975. We’ve been around for a few years struggling around the edges with tools and product….
I was in graduate school when the Altair hit the streets. It would take the resources of three or four or more people to collectively put a machine together but when we did it was great. No more waiting to get time on the school’s mainframe and no log-time bills!
The Arduino has a running start on the Altair. I believe that just as the Altair led the way for the PC the Arduino will open the doors of embedded computing to everyone.
We really do live in a golden age. So many possibilities and opportunities to grab onto. What are you waiting for? Make something! It doesn’t get any better than this.
The beauty of the Arduino is its accessibility. I had tried playing around with microcontrollers and physical computing but as a person who hadn’t ever written a single line of code it didn’t really all come together for me until the Arduino (and Tom Igoe’s book Physical Computing.)
An inexpensive device with such ease of use and staggering versatility, an Arduino is a wonderful aid for people who want to create electronic devices to interact with but don’t necessarily have a huge base of electronic knowledge. For people like me it’s a wonder to behold.
Why the Arduino matters……
Via a post on Adafruit: (Original post on Ideas for Dozens)
Today, the world of physical computing closely resembles the personal computer industry circa 1975. We’ve been around for a few years struggling around the edges with tools and product….