Kill The Bit/Pong

Chris DavisFun Things To Do

Here’s what passed for video games back in 1975. Today they work as a nice visual display for your Altair 8800 while it sits on the shelf…

Kill The Bit

Written by: Dean McDaniel
When: 1975

Step-by-Step:

  1. Stop whatever the Altair is doing – raise “Stop”, then raise “Reset”.
  2. To load Kill The Bit – switch 1 up (all others down).
  3. AUX1 down. This will load Kill The Bit from Arduino memory into Altair memory and LEDs A15-A8 will start sequencing.
  4. Your job is to kill the rotating bit. If you miss the lit bit, another bit turns on leaving two bits to destroy.
  5. Quickly toggle the switch, don’t leave the switch in the up position.

Pong

Step-by-Step:

  1. Stop whatever the Altair is doing – raise “Stop”, then raise “Reset”.
  2. To load Kill The Bit – switch 1 up, switch 0 up (all others down).
  3. AUX1 down. This will load Pong from Arduino memory into Altair memory and LEDs A15-A8 will start sequencing.
  4. Left player quickly toggles SW15 to hit the “ball.”
  5. Right player toggles SW8. Score is kept in memory locations 0x80 and 0x81 (left and right).
  6. Score is missed balls, so the lower number wins.