5 Oct
2012
5 Oct
'12
12:22 a.m.
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will give a
presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how the modern Make movement
parallels the early "homebrew" computing hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic
retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you can actually
buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
Help.
Best,
David Greelish
- Computer Historian, Author, Lecturer, Blogger & Podcaster
- Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society
Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13
http://about.me/davidgreelish
5 Oct
5 Oct
1:24 a.m.
Are you including circuit boards? I'm building an N8VEM right now.
Sent from my iPhone
On 2012-10-05, at 12:22 AM, David Greelish <david at classiccomputing.com> wrote:
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will give a
presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how the modern Make movement
parallels the early "homebrew" computing hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic
retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you can actually
buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
Help.
Best,
David Greelish
- Computer Historian, Author, Lecturer, Blogger & Podcaster
- Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society
Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13
http://about.me/davidgreelish
3:11 a.m.
On 10/05/2012 06:22 AM, David Greelish wrote:
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all
is out there that you can actually buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
What about the 1802 membership card:
http://www.retrotechnology.com/memship/memship.html
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
Not sure what the status of xt-ide is:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showwiki.php?title=XTIDE+Rev2
/P
6:20 a.m.
On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, Pontus wrote:
On 10/05/2012 06:22 AM, David Greelish wrote:
> Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you
> can actually buy to build now?
Not sure what the status of xt-ide is:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showwiki.php?title=XTIDE+Rev2
Active. Andrew Lynch has been shipping out version 2 PC boards for people
build their own. I'm going to be assembling a number of these for my own
systems as soon as I clear my bench of the current batch of projects.
11:08 a.m.
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:20 AM, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, Pontus wrote:
N8VEM has a number of other kits, that mostly consist of a provided
PCB that you source your own components for. Notable examples:
S100-based System:
Z80 CPU Board:
http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/Z80%20Board/Z80%20CPU%20Board.…
4mb SRAM Board:
http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/RAM%20Board/4MG%20RAM%20Board.…
Backplane:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/page/35158565/Build%20Instructions
IBM PC XT Clone:
System Board:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/page/59325872/Xi%208088
ISA Backplane:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=ISA%20Back…
I can personally recommend the N8VEM Zeta, as I built one, myself, and
have used it quite a bit. It's a pretty powerful (up to 20mHz Z80!)
CP/M 2.2/3.0 compatible single-board computer. I have built the Zeta,
itself, and the ParPortProp VGA/SD card board.
Zeta:
Main board:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/page/44366173/Zeta%20SBC
ParPortProp:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/page/52472959/ParPortProp
These are all easily-built boards, though they are not kits. Someone
could indeed make kits out of them, though, if they wanted to collect
the parts.
- Alex
On 10/05/2012 06:22 AM, David Greelish wrote:
> Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that
> you can actually buy to build now?
Not sure what the status of xt-ide is:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showwiki.php?title=XTIDE+Rev2
Active. Andrew Lynch has been shipping out version 2 PC boards for people
build their own. I'm going to be assembling a number of these for my own
systems as soon as I clear my bench of the current batch of projects. 
3:43 a.m.
On 5 October 2012 05:22, David Greelish <david at classiccomputing.com> wrote:
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
Over this side of the pond, in line with it's heritage of promoting
easy hobbiest add-ons, there is lots of stuff for the BBC Micro - from
Commodore SID chip add-ons, through SD/MMC card storage implemented
with half a dozen discretes, right up to the Retroclinic Datacentre
that provides mass storage and USB slave & host capabilities -
http://www.retroclinic.com/acorn/datacentre/datacentre.htm
Rob
6:18 a.m.
Grant's altairkit (replica)
Imsai series 2 (in limbo/about to be Vince's)
Not vintage but arduino/propeller kits, raspberry pi.
I can't remember the name but there was also that pdp panel/fpga project or emulator
interface wasn't there?
-----Original Message-----
From: David Greelish <david at classiccomputing.com>
Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.orgDate: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 00:22:14
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Retro computer kits
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will give a
presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how the modern Make movement
parallels the early "homebrew" computing hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic
retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you can actually
buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
Help.
Best,
David Greelish
- Computer Historian, Author, Lecturer, Blogger & Podcaster
- Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society
Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13
http://about.me/davidgreelish
3:25 p.m.
On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, David Greelish wrote:
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will give a
presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how the modern Make movement
parallels the early "homebrew" computing hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic
retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you can actually
buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
Accessory kits:
CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II
IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64
ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives
PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET
I'm almost ready to start a Kickstarter project to finance a new round of
P112 kits. See http://661.org/p112 for a description of the thing.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
5:45 p.m.
On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, David Griffith wrote:
The redirected site (http://p112.feedle.net/) isn't coming up. :(
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
PETdisk
microSD reader for the Commodore PET
I'm almost ready to start a Kickstarter project to finance a new round of
P112 kits. See http://661.org/p112 for a description of the thing.
4:05 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:22 AM, David Greelish
<david at classiccomputing.com>wrote:
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will
give a presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how
the modern Make movement parallels the early "homebrew" computing
hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that
you can actually buy to build now?
There seems to be a lot of C64 music-related hardware stuff people are
cooking up.
There's the (preassembled) MSSIAH cart that turns a C64 into a
midi-controlled synth module, also available from the site is a SID2SID
circuit board kit that lets you add a second SID chip to a C64.
http://www.8bitventures.com/
Also, the Bell CARDIAC might count:
http://www.porticus.org/bell/belllabs_kits_cardiac.html
4:22 p.m.
At 4:05 PM -0400 10/5/12, Jason McBrien wrote:
There seems to be a lot of C64 music-related hardware
stuff people are
cooking up.
There's the (preassembled) MSSIAH cart that turns a C64 into a
midi-controlled synth module, also available from the site is a SID2SID
circuit board kit that lets you add a second SID chip to a C64.
http://www.8bitventures.com/
That's cool! I knew about PROPHET64, but not MSSIAH. Someone should
maintain a list of all these great projects!
Has anyone created anything to allow us to plug things like a
Commodore 64 or Apple ][e into a modern LCD monitor?
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
| My Photography Website |
| http://www.zanesphotography.com |
4:38 p.m.
On Oct 5, 2012, at 4:22 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 4:05 PM -0400 10/5/12, Jason McBrien wrote:
You mean like this?
http://www.amazon.com/Composite-S-video-Audio-HDMI-Converter/dp/B003NS0UUQ
I can't speak to how well it works; I know that various LCD TVs I've
used really don't like the composite signal coming from the Apple ][
or the NES; it's probably slightly off spec, and the sloppy, cheap
analog control loops in old tube TVs handled it fine, but the digital
sync detector barfs on it. That's my working theory, anyway.
I'd love to make something with a high-speed ADC and an FPGA going
to VGA/DVI/HDMI to do the job correctly for vintage electronics
which may not have the cleanest signals, but that job requires a
large quantity of round tuits, which seem to be in short supply.
- Dave
There seems to be a lot of C64 music-related
hardware stuff people are
cooking up.
There's the (preassembled) MSSIAH cart that turns a C64 into a
midi-controlled synth module, also available from the site is a SID2SID
circuit board kit that lets you add a second SID chip to a C64.
http://www.8bitventures.com/
That's cool! I knew about PROPHET64, but not MSSIAH. Someone should
maintain a list of all these great projects!
Has anyone created anything to allow us to plug things like a
Commodore 64 or Apple ][e into a modern LCD monitor?
4:45 p.m.
At 4:38 PM -0400 10/5/12, David Riley wrote:
Cool!
Has anyone
created anything to allow us to plug things like a
Commodore 64 or Apple ][e into a modern LCD monitor?
You mean like this?
http://www.amazon.com/Composite-S-video-Audio-HDMI-Converter/dp/B003NS0UUQ I can't speak to how well it works; I know that
various LCD TVs I've
used really don't like the composite signal coming from the Apple ][
or the NES; it's probably slightly off spec, and the sloppy, cheap
analog control loops in old tube TVs handled it fine, but the digital
sync detector barfs on it. That's my working theory, anyway.
Try running the signal through an old VCR, then to the converter, and
see what happens. That's what we have to do to get a Sega Genesis
working on our old Mitsubishi HDTV-ready TV (which really isn't
ready, the PS3 freaks it out).
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
| My Photography Website |
| http://www.zanesphotography.com |
5:01 p.m.
On Oct 5, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 4:38 PM -0400 10/5/12, David Riley wrote:
While I'm sure that would work, my preferred solution is to run the
systems on an old tube TV, because the graphics were definitely
designed with the blurring effects of cheap CRTs in mind. :-) A lot
of games look really ugly when you can see every pixel, which is why
a lot of emulators spend more cycles on fancy blurring effects than
they do on the actual CPU and graphics emulation.
I do recall the VCR cleaning the signal up a lot vs. plugging right
into the TV back in the day, though. Something along the lines of
an AGC circuit in the path, which is what the Macrovision copy
protection technology freaks out to keep you from taping your DVDs.
- Dave
I can't speak to how well it works; I know
that various LCD TVs I've
used really don't like the composite signal coming from the Apple ][
or the NES; it's probably slightly off spec, and the sloppy, cheap
analog control loops in old tube TVs handled it fine, but the digital
sync detector barfs on it. That's my working theory, anyway.
Try running the signal through an old VCR, then to the converter, and
see what happens. That's what we have to do to get a Sega Genesis
working on our old Mitsubishi HDTV-ready TV (which really isn't
ready, the PS3 freaks it out). 
7:02 p.m.
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 8:22 PM, David Greelish
<david at classiccomputing.com>wrote:
This is my theme and blurb I came up with:
"David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will
give a presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how
the modern Make movement parallels the early "homebrew" computing
hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic retrocomputing kits and accessories."
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that
you can actually buy to build now?
retrocomputing kits:
Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and
others
FIGnition
Digi-Comp I
Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer
The Altair 8800, Altair 680, and Kenbak kit.
http://www.altairkit.com/
http://www.altair680kit.com/index.html
http://www.kenbakkit.com/
7:34 p.m.
On 05/10/2012, at 2:22 PM, David Greelish wrote:
Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all
is out there that you can actually buy to build now?
There is the excellent Microbee kit from Australia...
http://www.microbeetechnology.com.au
I believe they have more in the pipeline.
4308
days inactive
4308
days old
15 comments
14 participants
participants (14)
-
barythrin＠gmail.com -
david＠classiccomputing.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
grant＠stockly.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jbmcb1＠gmail.com -
jjacocks＠mac.com -
pontus＠update.uu.se -
pye＠mactec.com.au -
robert＠irrelevant.com -
tothwolf＠concentric.net -
wackyvorlon＠me.com