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by carlos 2219 days ago
I bought an Imsai8080 replica from https://thehighnibble.com/imsai8080/ I had a really nice time building the kit, toggle switches and display leds look exactly like original ones. Internally is an emulation of the IMSAI 8080 based on the ESP32 microcontroller
3 comments

You may also find a more faithful replica of the Altair 8800 here https://altairclone.com/ though admittedly the IMSAI with its big coloured toggles is much more eye-catching.
Less faithful replica of the Altair, but much more affordable: https://www.adwaterandstir.com/altair/

There's also a very affordable (< $100, including the needed Arduino DUE) workalike that pops up on eBay every now and again...I bought one: https://imgur.com/a/qntqSMG

A few pics of my Altair mini build here. The kits seems no longer available.

https://rfpoweramp.com/

What kinds of things do you plan to do with it?
Basically have fun playing around with it in the same way as with a real IMSAI8080... As an example look at this video on how to enter and run a small assembler program using the switches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNAMKPBSFI
Noting you can also hook up a console and use it like any other CP/M machine...run WordStar, Zork, etc.
I bought one of those too. Probably finish up the build this weekend.