Polarity?
Did this thing go pop when you were physically installing the battery, or when you attached the cables.?
Installing it, then it was a dead short across your terminals and you're lucky the thing didn't explode acid aallover you and the car (theyll do that!)
When you connected the battery? VERY VERY common! Check the polarity of the cables and the battery posts. The one that goes to the block or transmission is the ground wire. It needs to go to the NEGATIVE (-) side of the battery. The one connected to the positive (+) post goes directly to the big stud on the back of the starter solenoid. The batteries don't always have the terminals in the same location, positive and negative can be swapped! I did this friday afternoon swapping batteries into my 66 corvair! Pop Pop POP! Couldn't ifgure out where the big amp draw was when the key was off, then I realized I had the connections reversed---battery was setup differently. Dosen't help when the cables are both black, either...
Possibly you could have fried the voltage regulator and fusible link, but you won't know until you get it hooked up and running to check it out.
Good Luck!