Polymorphic Advert - July 1977

PolyMorphic had started out making expansion cards for the Altair 8800 - the 1975 micro that as well being the first affordable microcomputer in the modern sense also gave the world what would become known as the S-100 bus.

As more and more manufacturers started producing cards to the new format, a market opened up for other micros which could also use them, including this - the Poly 88, or as it was previously nicknamed the Micro Altair, or even the Orange Toaster^[1].

It was much smaller and simpler, but lacked the lights and switches of the original Altair so could only be accessed via a terminal. Whilst it could be programmed in machine code, this wasn't very user-friendly and so the company also offered its own version of BASIC, however this had to be loaded from tape and required at least 16K RAM.

Polymorphic's BASIC - a microcomputer without software is a tool without a handle. This PolyMorphic advert also features a few more "systems", including System 7 with only 8K RAM and a cut-down 8K BASIC, for $1,750

Several versions of the Poly 88 were available for sale. The cheapest was System 0 for $525, or about £3,030 in 2024 money. This included the Poly as a bare board, video circuit and tape interface. It was kit form only, which the advert helpfully suggests should only be assembled by "persons familiar with digital circuitry".

The top-of-the-range offering was System 16, which was assembled and tested and which came with 16K RAM, monitor, keyboard, BASIC and a cassette player - all for $2,250, or about £13,000 in 2024.