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As far as I can remember, the Altair used an Intel 8080A processor. The Intel 8008 wasn't widely used by hobbyists. I don't recall any CPU with 8800 designation from that era. Possibly RCA or TI, but neither were used by Altair.

The Motorola 6800 and Mostek 6502 soon became more popular because they were easier to interface than the Intel 8080A. The Zilog Z80 came out a couple of years later.

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You’re right. Thank you. I was misled by Altair 8800!

Intel did originally call their iAPX CPU the 8800, but that’s almost got to be an unrelated coincidence because the Altair 8800 was launched in late 1974, but the iAPX’s development didn’t begin at Intel until 1975. The iAPX is also an utterly diverse architecture and instruction set that Intel abandoned later, and they continued with the x86 line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432

The 6502 was also a lot cheaper -- around $25 compared to around $100 for the 8080.

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