A mostly similar variation has it that they shipped the unit via Railway
Express Agency (remember REA??) and as the story goes, it was in
transit when REA closed their doors unexpectedly and with no warning,
went bankrupt.
Steve
On 5/9/23 11:47 AM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, May 9, 2023 at 11:29 AM Brent Hilpert via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
Might note also that the Altair on/in the Pop Electronics issue is
physically vastly different than what shipped, it's not even the same case.
Yes. According to lore, that unit got lost in transit to Popular
Electronics.
My theories:
1) It actually did get lost in transit
2) MITS lied and said they sent it, but didn't, because they weren't ready
with the prototype for the photoshoot and needed to buy more time to finish
it
3) The UPS driver, being an aspiring if unscrupulous electronics and
computer nerd, and tipped off as to what was in the package, "lost" it and
took it home for himself
To the extent that prototype is still out there, it would definitely be one
of the few truly "holy grails" of the computer collecting hobby, along with
the missing chunk of the Apple 1 prototype.
Sellam
