<Am also thinking of building a early/mid 1970's era computer. If made wit <"old stock" parts, how would it fit in with the other "classic" computers <far as the history? The original factory made types (Altair, Mark 8, SWTP <sound too hard to find and too much money for me. Am thinking of using <Vector type cards with the common 2x22 pin edge connector. If more pins a <needed, there is the 56 pin "STD" bus size or the 2x36 pin connectors. Th If you build you own bus you will not have the ability to use other cards Cost to build will rival that of a used IMSAI and likely you will quit before the system can run software of the era. Some processors like the 8008 used in the Mark 8 were a bear to use and are hard to find now. If you want to run the software of the era using more modem parts would not prohibit tht but could be easier to work with. For example one 62256 32kx8 ram replaces 256 2102s! I assure you after wirewrapping and debugging 4k of 2102(32 of them plus TTL) the x8 parts suddenly look a lot better. I'd suggest finding one of the non first line machines or nearly so like an IMSAI, Northstar, Compupro, CAlifornia Computers, SWTP, or other machine that were still from the 70s. I'm not trying to kill homebrew but having done it...well I have no problem with building a mark 8 useing an 8008 and some modern rams as it not an antique and it would save days of work. You could also build with z80 (circa 1976) it is still used and common, it runs virtually tons of software and there are PC emulators for it as well. dddameron(a)earthlink.net... If you hadn't posted to the list I would not have seen this as earthlink is in my killfile due to excessive porn spam. IF anyone needs to email me they will ahve to use another ISP. Allison