IMSAI computerized dollhouse sold on eBay

One-of-a-kind piece of computer history was sold on Ebay last month. Thomas "Todd" Fischer, former employee of IMSAI Manufacturing Corporation and one of the founders of Fischer-Freitas Company, offered for sale a computerized dollhouse built by IMSAI for marketing purposes in 1977. The dollhouse was sold for $1,226.

The computerized dollhouse was built by two IMSAI engineering technicians, John Coons and Thomas Fischer, in early 1977, and it was a demo project showing off capabilities of IMSAI 8048 Single Computer Board (SBC). As a base for the dollhouse project, they used a "Woodline Products Victorian Dollhouse" kit. The 8048 SBC board, used for the demo, was one of prototype boards with early Intel support chips, and a few of these chips were even marked as "ES" (Engineering Sample). The core of the prototype board is C8748 8-bit microcontroller, that contains 64 bit RAM and 1 KB EPROM (Electrically Programmable Read Only Memory). The board also includes cassette interface, 5 relays, serial I/O and 1 or 2K of user programmable memory. The IMSAI 8048 SBC was programmed to handle various home automation activities, such as room lighting control, intruder alarm and security control, automating lawn sprinklers, heating and cooling control, smoke detector monitoring, stove control and real-time clock.

After one and half years of occasional use by IMSAI marketing department, the dollhouse was given away to Thomas Fischer. Over the next 33 years, the dollhouse has been repaired several times. In 1999, the IMSAI dollhouse was presented on Vintage Computing Festival, where it received the "Best Display" award. Thomas Fischer, the owner and one of the creators of the dollhouse, offered it for sale on eBay in August 2010. Unfortunately, due to fragility of the model it was offered for local pickup only, which possibly resulted in lower final price. The dollhouse was sold for $1,226, that, taking into account uniqueness and historical value of the item, can be considered a good deal.