website/content/museum/polymorphic-poly-88.md

---
title: Polymorphic POLY 88
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- U.S.A.
years:
- '1976'
cpus:
- 8080A
params:
  name: POLY 88
  image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_system_1.jpg
  company: /companies/polymorphic
  company_name: Polymorphic
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: POLY 88
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Polymorphic
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: U.S.A.
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1976'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: None
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full-stroke 54 keys (made by Cherry)
  - label: CPU
    value: 8080A
  - label: SPEED
    value: 2 MHz 8080A, running at 1.8432 MHz (so that it could be easily divided to produce standard baud rate clocks)
  - label: RAM
    value: 512 bytes to 32 KB.
  - label: VRAM
    value: 1 KB
  - label: ROM
    value: Monitor 1 KB (2 KB optional)
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 40 chars x 25 lines
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: Semi-graphic mode (128 x 48)
  - label: COLORS
    value: Monochrome
  - label: SOUND
    value: None standard (available through S100 boards)
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 11(W) x 17.5(H) x 43 (D) cm.
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: Keyboard, tape recorder, printer, video vomposite
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: None
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in PSU
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: |-
      Video, keyboard, cassette, serial interfaces.\
      Some Altair S-100 cards
  - label: PRICE
    value: From $595 to $1350
  tabs:
  - photos
  - adverts
  - hardware
  - software
  - emulators
  - links
  photos:
  - title: 'SYSTEM #1'
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_system_2.jpg
  - title: FRONT PANEL
    subtitle: ''
    text: Unlike competitors systems of the time (Imsai, Altair) the POLY 88 front panel only featured Power and reset switches.
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_frontpanel_1.jpg
  - title: BACK PANEL
    subtitle: ''
    text: 'Note the red switch used to modify the tape record speed (300 - 1200 bauds); and the serial number: 1904!'
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_backpanel_1.jpg
  - title: INSIDE
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      Full system featuring 32 KB of RAM, video, keyboard and cassette interfaces.

      **(1)** Cassette interface\
      **(2)** Keyboard cable coming from the video board\
      **(3)** Cassette interface cable coming from a serial port of the CPU board\
      **(4)** CPU board\
      **(5)** Video / Keyboard board\
      **(6)** 16 KB static RAM card\
      **(7)** 8 KB static RAM card (Polymorphic)\
      **(8)** Second 8 KB static RAM card
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_inside_1.jpg
  - title: BACKPLANE
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      The backplane supported:

      **(1)** Power supply filtering components\
      **(2)** Five S-100 connectors, an expansion connector for additional cards\
      **(3)** Fan and reset switch connector
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_backplane.jpg
  - title: CASE FRAME
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_chassis.jpg
  - title: COMPLETE SYSTEM
    subtitle: ''
    text: Cherry keyboard, Sanyo 9" monitor and General Electric data recorder.
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_system_3.jpg
  - title: ASSEMBLY, ADJUSTMENTS MANUAL
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/polymorphic_poly88_manual_1.jpg
  adverts:
  - title: U.S. ADVERT (1976)
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/pubs/polymorphic_poly88_pub_1.jpg
  - title: 'U.S. ADVERT (1977) #1'
    subtitle: ''
    text: This advert (May 1977) introduced the **System 16**, same as assembled System 7 with 16 Kb of RAM. ($1995)
    image: /media/museum/pubs/polymorphic_poly88_pub_2.jpg
  - title: 'U.S. ADVERT (1977) #2'
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      An advert dédicated to Polymorphic BASIC language features and to a new version of the system named System 0.

      The **System 0** was intended for the users who already have a S-100 Bus based system and wanted to transform it into a Poly 88 system. It consisted of the central processor card with ROM monitor, the video card and the cassette interface, all in kit form. Price: $525
    image: /media/museum/pubs/polymorphic_poly88_pub_3.jpg
  hardware:
  - title: POLY88 DISK KIT
    subtitle: ''
    text: 'The advert says : "Each kit contains a brushed aluminium front panel and walnut cabinet"!'
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_diskkit.jpg
  - title: CPU BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      The CPU board features ROM, RAM and serial I/O. It could be used as a stand-alone system, connected to a serial Input / Output device (Teletype).

      **(1)** 512 bytes of RAM holded in 4 \* 9111 chips (256\*4)\
      **(2)** 8080 chip. Here a NEC version\
      **(3)** Sockets for additonal 2 KB ROM chips\
      **(4)** 1 KB Boot ROM chip\
      **(5)** Serial connectors
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_cpuboard_1.jpg
  - title: VIDEO BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      This board manages video output and keyboard input.

      **(1)** composite video output connector\
      **(2)** Character generator ROM chip\
      **(3)** 8 \* 2111 memory chips (256 bits \* 4) holding 1 KB of video RAM memory\
      **(4)** Keyboard connector
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_videoboard_1.jpg
  - title: 8 KB RAM BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: 8 KB static RAM are made of 64 \* 2102 RAM chips (1K \* 1 bit).
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_8kramboard_1.jpg
  - title: 16 KB RAM BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      This standard S-100 bus 16 KB memory board cames from California Computer Systems. The memory is broken into four 4 KB groups which are independantly addressable.

      **(1)** Power regulators (one per chips row)\
      **(2)** Led indicators for board selection and bank selection\
      **(3)** Bank and address select switches\
      **(4)** Ram is arranged in four 4 KB independant groups
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_16kramboard_1.jpg
  - title: PROCESSOR CLOSE-UP
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_proc8080_1.jpg
  - title: CASSETTE INTERFACE
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      The cassette interface operates through the serial port of the CPU board.\
      It could read/write programs at 30 or 120 chars per second. Selection was made with the red switch.
    image: /media/museum/hardware/polymorphic_poly88_k7interface.jpg
  screenshots:
  - title: BASIC INTERPRETER
    subtitle: ''
    text: A diskette version was also available with data files management addition.
    image: /media/museum/software/polymorphic_poly88_k7basic.jpg
  - title: ASSEMBLER AND MONITOR.
    subtitle: ''
    text: These tools were delivered with each Poly 88 version.
    image: /media/museum/software/polymorphic_poly88_k7asm.jpg
  emulators:
  - title: Bob Bybee's PolyMorphic Emulator program
    url: http://www.bybeeweb.com/pm.htm
    platform: MS DOS
    text: Polymorphic systems emulator !
  links:
  - title: Polymorphic documentation
    url: http://www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/PolyMorphic/
    text: ''
  - title: www.retrotechnology.com
    url: http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/poly_restore.html
    text: A page dedicated to the restoration of a Poly 88
  comments:
  - author: pedro (portugal)
    date: Friday 1st January 2021
    text: I am looking to buy a poly 88 computer in any condition. I you have one please email me my email is :pedrovfroque@outlook.com
  - author: pedro (portugal)
    date: Friday 1st January 2021
    text: I love vintage computers and I am looking to have more information about some systems that I have in my collection.
  - author: Ken Krugler (United States)
    date: Thursday 5th March 2020
    text: I have a Poly-88 that I built from kit in 1977, along with a bunch of cassette tapes and a keyboard. Let me know if anyone wants this, otherwise it''s getting tossed (we''re down-sizing)
  - author: Mike Douglas
    date: Saturday 9th November 2019
    text: Marvin, I obtained a large collection of Poly-8813’s and 8810’s about a year ago along with a few hundred diskettes. I fully restored one of the 8813’s and it is running great under System-88 (Exec). However, I really wanted to find and restore an 8813 with the Polymorphic mods for CP/M. This summer I found one of these board sets (CPU, VTI and RAM board) and have recently finished restoring them to operating condition. I had to create a version of CP/M for the 8813 from scratch since none of the few hundred disks I have are Poly CP/M disks. Please look through your disks and let me know if any of them have CP/M related files on them. I have written utilities for archiving and writing disks to/from a PC over a serial port connection to the Poly 8813.
  - author: Marvin Johnston (California USA)
    date: Tuesday 20th August 2019
    text: I probably have the worlds largest collection of remaining Polymorphic drawings, boards, etc. While I am not very quick on responding... too much stuff :)..., I may be able to help with information. My collection includes four or five Poly 88s, a Poly 8810, Poly 8813, and maybe around 200 spare boards in various stages from partially built to complete and tested plus two filing cabinets full of Poly documentation. My next project will be to start archiving all the software. I probably have several thousand Poly disks, both 5 1/4" and 8", so this will take a while!
  - author: Edward W. Jackson (Missouri, USA)
    date: Thursday 12th September 2013
    text: In the late 70''s I paid almost four grand for this system, with a walnut cabinet for the floppy drive, processor! It was stolen from my Santa Barbara home, within two weeks...
  - author: Robert Nind (Canada)
    date: Saturday 3rd March 2012
    text: I have a Polly 88 that worked well. I did a lot of upgrades to it including adding dual 5-1/4 shugart floppy drives with North Star Controller. I later put the polly 88 boards into an Altair 8800 box so I could add more S-100 cards. I also converted games from the Sol-80 to run on the Polly 88. Star Trek and air traffic controller. i haven''t used it in years. I have 3 complete polly 88''s that probably still work.
  - author: Don Haywood (Colorado USA)
    date: Sunday 19th December 2010
    text: |-
      The Poly 88 was also available as a system 0. It included all of the basic components but without the mother board, memory or cabinet.

      I built my own missing stuff and still have it.\
      DH
  - author: zach (arkansas)
    date: Wednesday 21st July 2004
    text: hmmmm,,me too,does eneyone know eney min computer emulation ?
  - author: Sam Wilson (bergen, norway)
    date: Thursday 21st November 2002
    text: Hmmm... I remember reading somewhere that the poly 88 was called the "micro-Altair" at some stage - the name was changed after MITs complained.
  related:
  - /museum/polymorphic-system-8813
  oc_id: 563
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230531223712/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=563
    date: '2023-05-31'
---

The POLY 88 was a S-100 bus based computer sold in kit or assembled versions. The small case could receive the 8080 CPU board and three additional S-100 cards. Daughter boards were provided by Polymorphic to expand system capacities: video, keyboard, serial and cassette interfaces.

The system was also compatible with Altair peripherals. Originally, the computer was sold with the name "Micro-Altair", but MITS (the Altair manufacturer) required to change it quickly. So the company name became Polymorphic and its first computer, the POLY 88.

In 1976, five versions were proposed:\
**System 1** Kit version including 512 bytes RAM, 1 Kb. ROM monitor, 16 lines x 32 chars. video interface, keyboard input port and power supply. ($595)\
**System 2** System 1 plus 64 chars. per line option and cassette interface kit. ($690)\
**System 3** System 2 plus 8 Kb. of RAM, Basic and Assembler programs on cassette tape. ($990)\
**System 4** Complete kit including System 3 plus TV monitor, keyboard and cassette recorder ($1350)\
**System 7** System 4 assembled and ready to use. ($1350)

Thanks to **Leon H. Schindel** for his invaluable help

<table> <tr> <td></td> <td>We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>