Cloud Enabled Altair 8800 on Azure Sphere

I’m fascinated by tech and retro computing and this project combined both interests and hopefully, it will inspire you to fire up this project, learn about the past and connect to the future.

The Altair 8800 running on Azure Sphere builds on Open-Source projects and brings with it something unique, which is to modernize and cloud-enable the Altair. Bringing 21st century cloud technologies to a computer generation that predates the internet.

The focus of Azure Sphere is secure IoT by design and by default. The cloud-enabled Altair 8800 emulator running on Azure Sphere inherits all the platform security goodness.

For more of the project head to "Bringing new life to the Altair 8800 on Azure Sphere".

The MITS Altair 8800 was built on the Intel 8080. The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor manufactured by Intel, clocked at 2MHz, with a 16-bit address bus to access a whopping 64 KB of RAM. This was back in 1974, yes, that’s 47 years ago. The Altair 8800 is considered to be the computer that sparked the PC revolution and kick-started Microsoft and Apple.

Solution Architecture

We wanted to create a secure cloud connected experience with the Altair 8800 emulator on Azure Sphere. We “Web Enabled” the terminal; you can securely connect to the Altair from anywhere with the right credentials. We introduced a virtual CPU monitor mode, enabling you to flick virtual switches on the Altair 8800 and program as if you were seated next to the device.

The Altair 8800 file system was fair game too, we virtualized the read/write file system and host it in an Azure virtual machine, along with a local cache to improve performance.

And finally using Altair BASIC standard extensibility points we enabled Altair BASIC to read the temperature and pressure sensors on the Avnet Azure Sphere starter kit and to stream the telemetry to IoT Central. So, the Altair 8800 really has been modernized and connected in ways were never dreamt of when the Altair was invented.

Mikro Altair 8800 Retro Click

For those keen but not keen enough to build you own front panel then MikroE have a Altair 8800 Retro Click (available soon) that will click to your Avnet Azure Sphere Starter Kit and will give you a very realist front panel experience too!

Find out more

Head to "Bringing new life to the Altair 8800 on Azure Sphere" to find out more.

Enjoy.

Cheers Dave