Cost the equivalent of $2359 back then, right now you can get a few on eBay for around $5000. Or you can get a mini replica kit for $150. [1]

[1] https://altairmini.com/en/home

Wow ... the man who invented it, Ed Roberts, had quite the life:

  • Air Force enlisted

  • Air Force comissioned

  • Electrical Engineer

  • Computer inventor

  • "Gentleman" farmer

  • Medical doctor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_(computer_engineer)

My school library ( 6th - 8th grades ) had this magazine, and they had a 9-week class on programming in BASIC using a 110 bps teletype connected to an HP2000C that was shared by several school districts. That was my start in all of this. I didn't get my own computer until the C64 price dropped to $200 in 1983.

I was completely distracted by the magazine cover. The calculator being advertised there, and the wording, caught my attention.

The magazine issued is available here [0].

Apparently, it really was wiring up an entire calculator.

> ... Start assembly by installing and soldering into place the fixed resistors. Then proceed to installing the three electrolytic capacitors, the diodes, and the transistors, taking care to observe proper polarity and basing. Mount the transistors close to the board’s surface...

[0] https://archive.org/details/197501PopularElectronics

The Altair didn’t survive for very long, but essentially being responsible for the creation of Microsoft is a pretty Big Deal.

Bill Gates: "Popular Electronics" magazine cover of January 1975 change my life"

Paul Allen write the simulator on Harvard PDP-10, Bill Gates write main code of Basic, Monte Davidoff write Math package. They coded day and night during 2 months.

Micro-Soft was born.