Oh, to add: the Altair 8800 was artificially cheap because they got a bulk discount on a set of 8080. Not just 10-20%, but something like 60-80%. So the cheap $469 (thereabouts) kit was a little deceptive - it was only until that bulk set of 8080's ran out (and note that MITS didn't last very long, only about a year or two -- overwhelmed by IMSAI competition, and sure other factors also). Just saying, the "cheap Altair 8800 kit" price may have given an early impression that the 8080 was cheap. Whatever the bulk deal was, it wasn't something that was sustainable. (I can't find my notes on it, but it runs in my mind that bulk order was in the low-thousands, not tens of thousands)
SWPTC around 1976 had a famous t-shirt written that the "Altair Sucks" - since they acknowledged that to actually make it useful (teletype + disk drive + video adapter) you'd still be up to over $3000-ish bucks. On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 10:23 AM Steve Lewis <[email protected]> wrote: > I'll confess, I wasn't even born in 1975 :) But from what I've read... > Chuck Peddle had come up with some kind of manufacturing method that let > them mass produce enough 6502, where the initial price they offered was > about $25 for a chip. I don't know enough about all the intricacies of > those methods (and how they compared to Motorola and others existing > processes) - though I do know the 6502 was also very trimmed of features > (which made me wonder if the lesser-price was just better yields due to > just an overall simpler chip?). I didn't get the impression the Z80 was > "expensive" - contemporary prices that I found placed the Z80 at something > like $60 (or at least, under $100) and an 8080 at over $300? (but it's > hard to pinpoint individual price vs bulk order, and normalize across those > critical years of 1974-1977). > > Apologies if this is all covered in your book. > > It's interesting to me reading the two arcs of minicomputers and the > micros sort of eventually converging. You had minicomputers used to make > Star Wars and solve huge real-world problems, while micros clawed their way > up out of calculators. Note, there is the claim of Elon Musk and Linus > Torvald starting their computer careers using a VIC-20 (6502-based). > > At Lockheed (then GD), when the F-16 was first being developed, I'm told > they used Commodore PET's to do initial aerodynamics modeling because it's > BASIC had floating point support. Obviously, that's not unique to the 6502 > - but the point was they chose PET because they were so relatively > affordable and easy to use for the math-folks to figure out and simulate > their equations. (maybe the "all-in-one" ness of the PET was a factor too, > from a material purchase standpoint, I recall that being a factor whereby > they got around calling it a computer? ) > > > -Steve > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 8:11 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> As far as I know this is true. What impact is had is debatable! >> >> Murray 🙂 >> >> On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 1:11 PM Christian Liendo via cctalk < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >> > >> > >> https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/the-mos-6502-how-a-25-chip-sparked-a-computer-revolution/ >> > >> > According to many 50 years ago on September 16, 1975, MOS Technology >> > showed the 6502 at WESCON >> > >> >
