The IMSAI, and many other 8080 machines

Hardware
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The IMSAI was, apparently, the finest personal computer - see the advert below - but was very closely related to the MITS Altair, and not entirely pleasing to Ed Roberts of MITS. Here’s his take - he finds eleven flaws.

(More below the fold…)

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(Image from Benj Edwards’ page on the IMSAI 8080)

Following on from Ed Roberts take, there’s an interesting mail conversation with Roberts and IMSAI creator Joe Killian, in which we see estimates of nearly 20k machines sold:
The Ed Roberts Tribute page (by Thomas “Todd” Fischer)

And then, see this Q&A where ‘Raffzahn’ mentions more than a few 8080-based machines:

Let’s see what gets mentioned - links in the Q&A:

  • Kyotronic 85 series: TRS-80 M100, Olivetti M10, NEC 8201/8300, etc
  • SOL 20
  • Compucolor II
  • Interact Home Computer
  • Micronique Interact
  • DAI Personal Computer

Machines based on clones such as the Russian КР580ВМ80А or the Polish MCY7880:

  • Micro-80
  • Радио-86РК
  • Vector-06C
  • Orion-128
  • Tesla PMD 85

And mentioned by ‘Wilson’: Specialist; Baltijets Juku.

And by ‘DmytroL’: Lviv PC-01.

And by ‘joan’: the Transam Triton.

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Thanks for sharing! It’s one (a big one) of my pending wishes, I really like the idea of take a time to build my own 8080 based computer like the kits that appears in the different articles. Now I’m resurrecting a Magnabox Odissey clonehttp://www.pong-story.com/panoramic_telematch.htm, with a bit of lucky after a successful repair I hope to take a time to retake my 8080 quest.

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