Altair 8800b received

[Richard A. Cini]

All:

	Today I received the Altair 8800b that I won on eBay last week. I
honestly say that this is the first machine that I'm honestly afraid to plug
in. It was billed as "working but in need of a good cleaning" which is an
understatement. The interior is filled with greasy dust.

	Among the other atrocities buried therein:

	*  two bus connectors (out of 10) have destroyed pins
	*  poor repairs/lifted traces on the display control board
	*  repairs on the other boards (CPU and two memory boards) in need
of a solder reflow
	*  the main filter cap was replaced with two smaller (but equivalent
uF) caps which were unsecured,
		banging around the inside. These broke one of the card
supports.
	*  the top cover has three 3/16" holes drilled into it

	I've asked the seller to give me a rundown of the history of the
machine if he knows it. On a positive note, the switches appear to be intact
and the panel graphics seem to be OK.
	
	Now, I remember someone asked me to look at the CPU board for some
sort of identification. The CPU board has the following designation: "MITS
8800b CPU REV 0".

	For those who keep track, this unit is labeled SN#5400280K.

Rich

Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
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