Thank you to everyone who took a chance, clicked on my Ad and came to watch this video. I created this channel after the inadvertent demise of my original channel, BradH. BradH was one of those 'channels' that just got autocreated because I wanted to comment on something, or share videos of the kids with my Mom, etc. I also shared videos of my vintage computers there, basically home videos... no editing. I'd always wanted to create more 'formal' videos - videos with decentish lighting, maybe a few special effects. Particularly documentaries as I've been in love with those my whole life. My first attempt at this was the Digital Group Z80 video - shot with a handy cam and minimally edited. Several years later, I decided to really go for it and did my first 'documentary-style' video featuring the OSI 300 trainer board. That video earned the notice of hackaday and did pretty well, which was really exciting as a new 'creator'. I followed up with this Unbuilt Kits video and so on. Eventually I decided I wanted to separate the 'formal' videos from the home videos, choose a more descriptive channel name and such, so I set up a branding account. Unfortunately in the process, I managed to delete the original channel, which was unrecoverable. So I set this one up, hastily reuploaded (which is why many videos are within weeks of each other) and took the huge penalty in exposure that comes with starting all over again. Since then I've created some small 'tour' videos (8BitBites) and have been working on a bunch of projects soon to come. Anyway, I sincerely appreciate everyone who took a risk and clicked on that Ad, not knowing if they were going to be sucker punched into buying something, or Rickrolled, or worse. But that was never the intent - this channel is produced for the joy of it. There is no Patreon, no tshirts to sell, none of that for the forseeable future. It's like Biff said in Back to the Future II, relating what his future self told him about the Sports Almanac: "No catch." I've so enjoyed the learning process - probably my favorite thing was messing around with the green screen - and the joy of seeing it all come to life onscreen. I decided to go the Ad route for two reasons - one was to put some skin in the game and push myself to keep going, and the other was to try and recover from the loss of the old channel. KZfaq is a hard place for small, 'new' channels to get noticed. It is deeply moving to have even one person compliment your work, let alone a whole bunch, let alone, as of this writing, 171 people who actually took the time and the extra step to click Subscribe. Thank you so much for the kind words and those votes of confidence. It means the world to me and motivates me to keep doing, keep learning, and hopefully, keep entertaining. Thank you, thank you, thank you - BradH.

Hi. I am the David Griffiths who designed the DG680. Thanks for the nice review. In answer to your question about the numbering, the VDU was first described in Electronics Today magazine and they assigned it project number 640. When I wrote the article about the CPU they called it 680. I am not sure whether that was the next number in their sequence or whether they jumped to 680 in a nod to the Z80. Applied Technology, the company that sold the kits, tended to brand it as DG-Z80. I don't remember what the selling price was but I think you are in the right ball park. You are right about the DG initials but I later formed a company called Digital Graphics Pty Ltd - what an amazing co-incidence about the initials ;-)

First time I've gotten an ad on this site that actually looked interesting. I've been looking for more channels focused on vintage computing, but beyond the few big ones, had no clue where to find them. Subscribed 😊

damn wtf, i was doing something while watching and i looked up and was baffled by the sub count. keep the videos up man

This video is a great description of early computer kits and brought back a few memories. I didn't get started with computers until the 70s. My first home computer was Tandy's TRS-80, which made computing fun for me and many others.

Aussie Lad here. Yeah, Al-foil on polystyrene was the standard for me growing up. There was some chips stored on good antistatic foam, but most of the time it just crumbled into a gross dust. Im not sure if it was the climate or they just sent the junk out to the colonies. I’ve found huge panels of chips done this way when digging through storage at work, obviously not original packaging, but re-packed for storage (in the 80’s, I found this in about 2015). But dad had a few boxes of parts from when he worked as a photocopier tech, hes more of a mechanic, but I found enough opamps and 74xx chips to get into mischief. Electronics Australia has a long and colourful history, but I can blame/thank them for a lot, I got my first copy in ‘95. I could wax lyrical, but to keep on topic, they also got me into the hardware of computing. They had a series of articles, The $100 PC, which pointed out if you didnt need the top of the line $3000 Pentium, a very capable machine could be built from parts for bugger all. A bit of scrounging, troubleshooting, fleamarkets n hand-me-downs. This is pre-internet, so a bunch of articles telling you what to look for and the obvious Gotchya’s was priceless. As a pre-teen, that became my mission. Christmas and birthday money, dumpster diving at my Dad and Uncles work, picking the brain of the local computer shop, I had **MY** pc. There was the family computer, but I was forbidden to take the lid of that. So I built my own. My mates had a Nintendo or a Sega. I had a Computer. I now collect old electronics magazines, and had I been born a generation before, I 100% would have built myself a S100 system. Im half tempted to now, just for shits and giggles.

"...since I am situated only about 50 miles south of the Australian capital city of Whistler, British Columbia..." i see what you did there ; )

This is very interesting I learned quite a bit and the quality is pretty good.

When I was in college in NYC back in the 70's, I was a member of a computer club in Long Island. There were at least 3 people in the club who had built Mark-8's, and there were one or two under construction. At every meeting we would have people bringing in their machines and demonstrating them work. The MARK-8s sometimes played music either via a speaker hooked up to an output port, or by making noise on a transistor radio. I remember that two of those Mark 8's were expanded machines, housed in large cabinets (internal separate power supplies). I don't know if those were kits or home made PCBs. In an attempt to build a PIC-A-STAR amateur radio transceiver using DSP, I actually have made some of my own double sided boards using toner transfer. It's a bear to do. I first put the resist on one side and spray paint the other side to protect from the etchant. I then etch the board, I used a mix of 2 parts H2O2, with 1 part of Muriatacid (Diluted HCL, sold to adjust swimming pool PH). After the first side is etched, I removed the paint and the resist with mineral spirits. Now I drill a few key holes to help me align the second side toner transfer. The PCB design artwork has a few "bullet points" on it for this purpose. With the second side resist ironed on, I spray paint the etched side and throw the board in the etchant again. Again remove paint and resist, clean, dry. The PCBs I made were for high density SMT parts, through hole 'jellybean" parts, and the usual gang of connectors. The 100 mill through hole parts spacing actually ended up aligning close enough for the dual side layout not to short circuit, or not circuit. I used "Augat" sockets which stand proud of the board by about 1mm, you can solder these on both sides of the board. So homemade double sided boards are not impossible, but these day you will just use Kicad to design them, and send off to China to get them made.

This tingled all the right nostalgia tingles. Great video! P.S.: Whenever I hear 8085, I think about the awesome TRS-80 Model 100 Portable Computer. Bill Gates himself worked on its firmware. This may be the last time he could be credited as lead programmer on a consumer project.

Hey. Reseller here. We used to do storage units. We found a partial Altair 8800 kit. It was in a storage unit for nearly a decade. The storage facility would have likely disposed of it. But we put it up for auction. The market decided a price of $1800. Resellers provide a service. I guarantee many collectors would not deal with what you may come across in abandoned storage units. It's incredibly hard work. But sometimes it pays off.

SO impressed by this. I'm honored to be your 1000th "like" on this video, and you have most decidedly won me over! This mirrors so well what I like to do on my channel "Forgotten Machines". Thank you for preserving and documenting these systems so well!

Really glad I took a chance and clicked on this ad. This was great and an era of computing I knew very little about!

This is a great video, I really loved it. Reminds me of the ZX spectrum clones my dad built in the Soviet Union.

Liked, commented, subscribed, rang the bell. Thanks for the advertisement. It turned out to be exactly what I hoped it would be. Thank you for a well researched and presented video. You could have done an individual video on each kit. I love looking at the primordial soup origins of the computer revolution. I’m just amazed at the quality of this video. Looking forward to future videos. In the mean time I’ll go look at your other uploads.

I have a Commodore MOS KIM-1 myself. This presentation is awesome as this hardware predates commercial production of personal computers and geared towards industrial, scientific/academic and hobbyists.

Alright, where do I begin, ads? I hate ads. Never click em. Like not ever. But this one was intriguing and I got nothing better going on at four in the morning. So anyway, here I am two and a half minutes in and you have a new followe! So glad I clicked your ad. I am really looking forward to watching your channel grow!

Fantastic channel. I've been watching for awhile now. Absolutely love your sense of humor!

Yes, keep the rare sealed kits as they are, for myself, I'm glad to know they exist and are taken care of.

I love the little skits that intersperse your videos :D

This is great stuff, can’t wait to watch more :)

I worked for Midwest Scientific Instruments in Olathe Ks back in the late 70's, they developed a business system based on the SWTPC 'standard' with the Motorola 6800. I have a link to their catalog here... I also have an unbuilt SWTPC system, cassette interface and an open frame monitor that I will probably put on eBay eventually. Hard to do, because one of the original boxes is addressed to MSI from SWTPC, and another is from SWTPC to Computer Workshop of North KCMO. My experience with Computer Workshop involved fixing Polymorphic 8812/3 computers, since I already had experience with Poly 88 systems at Cyborg Computer Gaming Center in Westport (Kansas City, Missouri) back about that time too!

I accidentally dropped my phone while I watched KZfaq and when I picked it up this video started. I'm glad I did because this is great content! You got a new subscriber 👍

I saw this as an ad and I thought it's gonna be one of those scammy weird videos but I was wrong. This is an awesome video, as is your channel! Keep it on! I'll definitely subscribe and stay!

finally, an interesting ad, you just earned a new subscriber

Pretty sure this was the only time I've ever clicked an ad, anywhere... Definitely worth it!

Absolutely fascinating and some rare gems there, for sure.

Now *this* is an advertisement I could get behind.

Wow... What a true hidden gem your channel is! It's sad it took me this long to be redirected/brought to it by KZfaq's algorithms.

This is the only ad that I actually liked. Thank you for making this an ad, and not some guys mixtape.

Really love your channel! Thanks for all the great sharing :) :)

I'm so pleased I found this channel, content that's right up my street produced in an enjoyable way. Splendid stuff!

I absolutely adore your skits, sir~! It gets so old watching all these kids on yt using the same stock footage over and over while doing monologues.. Your Style is Remarkably Refreshing and You put out such Fun content!!! I'm learning so much! Thank You!

And now having watched the whole Central Data 2650 segment, I can add a few more comments: Yes, you're right about the box and that added sheet; neither of those was part of the stock package you got from Central Data when ordering from the Radio-Electronics article. My memory agrees with you, that you did indeed just get the bare board and the PROMs when ordering that way. Those PROMs ought to still be fine, since they're the old "Fuse-Link" style where microscopic metal fuses were actually "blown" when programming those chips. So they stand a much better chance of working after all this time than the EPROMS other old computers used, in which the floating gates eventually have their charge leak away. If you or anyone else actually builds up one of these bare boards (which I recall was fun), watch out for little metal bridges. My own board was not completely etched and had a few little copper whiskers connecting traces that shouldn't have been connected. Luckily, I had a couple of experienced mentors who found that problem for me; I wouldn't have thought to look for something like that! Since this board has a composite-video output, it should be possible to connect it to any modern monitor that has a composite video input (though I've been saving a couple of old CRT monitors just for connecting to my own CD 2650 once I restore it). Oh, and the intro frame in your video indicates it ran at 3.5-something MHz. Hm, well I do recall overclocking it once I got a 2650B chip, but I believe the stock board ran at 1.[something] MHz. It still seemed pretty zippy compared to the minicomputers I used at school since it wasn't going through a serial terminal like they were. Connecting a keyboard might pose a bit of a challenge in modern times, since it uses a parallel ASCII interface. I bet there are or were converters out there to convert USB or PS/2 keyboards to that ancient standard, though, since once upon a time surplus keyboards almost all used that interface. Again, I'm happy to answer any Central Data 2650 questions if I still happen to have the information in my leaky old memory. :)

Brings back some old memories!

Dang, 1K of RAM taking up an entire circuit board. Folks back then really knew their stuff compared to today.

Just found your channel and subbed this video is great so far keep up the content! Excited to see what's to come.

Fascinating, so many systems vying for the new market.

I'm not sure why this was in my recommended, but I'm glad it was. Great video, buddy!

Wow !!!!!! im blown away !!!! such awesome stuff !!!!!!

Amazing collection. I imagine there are not many people in the world with anything like this. This is a really interesting era of home computing.

Amazing content.

Cool video 👍👌😎

Really good and interesting video. Took me back to reading those electronics magazines in my youth.

This channel is a hidden gem! You’re way more in depth than the 8-Bit Guy, and you’ve discuss BBS which he has yet to do.

Muchas gracias por este video super informativo!! Lo disfrute

Great ad great video

Giving the originals to the museum is a good gesture. But before that, make as many good copies of it as possible, so that others can learn from it. That is what the makers would have wanted. Maybe take out a few little mistakes, improve it a bit here and there, nothing wrong with that. Having to think in a structured manner is good for kids. Building something from scratch is good too. Neither is there something wrong with making a few buck by selling replicas. Information is free, it has to be spread to have effect. Carry on, you do good work.

Awesome collection. I really miss PE magazine. I remember reading every issue that you featured.

This is Great glad the algorithm Brough this me this I'm now subscription 436

Great video :) I still have some Don Lancaster books, specifically TTL cookbook and CMOS cookbook. He describes the TV typewriter in the ttl cookbook. Used these books in the 80s and 90s before datasets were easily available via the Internet. I feel old now.

This channel deserves more views! Hope you keep it up :)

Idk why I enjoy retro computer videos like this so much, maybe it’s just relaxing an informative. Though I don’t think this information will ever be of any use to me, it’s still cool history.

Dude I learned a lot and your vids look cool how u only have 750 suubs you should have 100k I'm subbing

There is, IMO, a BIIG hole in your list. The Sinclair ZX80. This came out in 1980 and the kit was sold for £79.95. It used the Z80 and came with 1kb RAM. It also came with full QWERTY keyboard, RF modulator for video output to a TV, & a cassette tape interface for storage. The supplied boot ROM was installed with Sinclair BASIC. In short it was a full home computer system with an input system that anyone could understand & programme c/w video output. I believe this kit marked the transition from computers being purely for engineers to their becoming something everyone could own & use. Thus it started 1980s home computer explosion. I didn't have one of these as while I was saving up its successor, the ZX81, was released and I built one of these instead. I might also add that this machine made a pretty good Z80 programmer out of me, something which later became a very useful employment skill.

Great video! I found it via search about 70s kit computing out of curiosity and liked it. You gained a new sub! Now im going to watch the others as well. :)

Thank you youtube for recommending this to me

What a great video! Also great to see a new channel with some good retro content that isn't a complete hipster tech fest. Totally subscribed and passed it on to friends! =)

That was a sweet Dr. claw impersonation at 13:40. 10/10.

What a fascinating and well made video. My interests are more 80s/early 90s computing, but this was so good, accet a brand new subscriber :)

Thanks 👍

What a fascinating collection! I started building (mostly) retro kit computers last year, and I just finished a slightly-updated reproduction of the "78up5" Signetics 2650 Mini System (also published in Electronics Australia as an update to the slightly older one you showed, I believe) a couple days ago. Having proved that it works as advertised (I can enter machine code into the PIPBUG system monitor via serial terminal, then execute that code and see the output), I'm please with the result but not sure what else to do with it now, hehe. Documentation I've found suggests that, at one time, there was commercial software available for it, as well as upgrade projects, but I haven't found the binaries for any of the software yet, and the old magazine articles that describe projects are not in the greatest, most readable state. Oh, well. It was fun, just the same, and there's always the future! Other kits I've built use the RCA COSMAC 1802, Zilog Z80 and Z180, Intel 8080A and 8085, MOS 65C02, and Rockwell 6501Q. I even just today looked at websites offering kits of boards to build your own reproduction Schelbi-8H or 8B and Mark 8, but the prices, just for the boards, are a little eye watering, so I think I'll have to skip those. :-O Thank you so much for showing us your fine collection of original, vintage kits! :-)

Amazing video!! You deserve more subs. Also, it’s a dream of mine to find an unbuilt computer kit for cheap at an estate sale etc. You’ve got a great collection.

Back in the day, WAY back (1978-1980), I worked for a process control company. One of my contracts was Fortin Laminating that manufactured bare circuit board. Makes me wonder if any of their products ended up in these kits.

I spenr hundreds of hours building S100 boards and designing optically isolated serial interface cards, There was no standard interface available. I have a Cromemco computer sitting in the floor next to my desk; Unfinished and non working! I also have a number of unassembled card kits, including a music synthesiser. A Fairchild F8 development board and a book on how to use an F8 Microprocessor to make a Microcomputer!

My dad built a Heath H88/89 back when I was in elementary school (around '79). He still has it and says it should still run if he replaced the power supply in it. I can remember learning BASIC on it and my dad upgrading it from a H88 w/16k to a H89 with 2 floppy drives. Even though the second drive isn't around anymore, I'd love to get ahold of some hard sector floppies and the OS for that beast and see if I could relive some of my childhood days on it.

I’m waiting to find an old box in an old barn or attic filled with New Old Stock. It’s already happened just waiting on time to catch up. Nice informative Video. Even Nicer “Junk”. As my wife says.

Even when this was an Ad I loved the video and subed for me !

I was just reading about Mk 8 earlier today and YT recommended this video. Darn computers have gotten wicked smart since Mk 8.

I got the Central Data 2650 back in the day and built it. I didn't have a parallel ASCII keyboard so used an AIM65 to provide that function. The CD2650 still works. I am thinking of expanding it and putting it into a nice perspex case. I have a spare C64 keyboard which I will use instead of having to get out the AIM65.

I had a friend (sadly now dead) who used to build the old kit computers that used switches and a momentary button to enter data into the computer and the output was via lights.

Man. That bit about the difficulty of producing two layer pcbs really highlights how we're living in a different era. Nowadays there are fabs that'll make your custom 6-layer pcbs and ship them to your doorstep in days for a couple bucks.

I've etched and drilled my own double sided boards from artwork using the toner transfer method. The technique is to transfer toner pattern to one side of the board (with a clothes iron), and then spray paint the other side to protect the copper during etching. Etch the board, then drill a few key holes that are the alignment markers with the other side. Remove the spray paint from the reverse side, and then transfer the toner to the now blank side. Use push pins in the alignment holes to insure that the second side pattern lines up, then iron on the reverse side pattern. I usually do the most complex side first. Spray paint the etched side, and then etch the second side. Then remove the paint and resist from both sides. Drill out the board. Hopefully, if the artwork was good, and your alignment close, the holes will all line up. I usually didn't get 100% perfect alignment, but it was close enough to be able to connect both sides without shorts. Double sided board artwork designed for home etching will usually have lots of wire via holes. In some places soldering a part on both sides performs this function. Augat sockets that mount about 1-2 mm proud of the board can be soldered on both sides. I am building a DSP ham transceiver called the Pic-a-Star, and have etched some double sided boards that use SMT parts. The most complex part was the DSP processor board, DSP codec board, and mother board. All double sided (though 80% of the tracking was contained on one side). The DSP module works. :-) Gluing two boards together is an interesting approach, but you CAN home etch a double sided board. I have mixed feelings about not building those kits. I see MANY classic unbuilt Heathkits on ebay. In many cases the collectors won't even OPEN the box as they feel that devalues the kit. (But then how do you know that you didn't just buy a box full of rocks?) Sadly, even if you wanted to build some of those kits you'd first have to buy new capacitors as the ones supplied with the kit have probably all dried up and are now useless. You should quickly remove all those IC's from the old black foam, I recently discovered some parts I'd had in storage for some 40 years with the IC pins completely rotted away! I was able to salvage some by soldering them into Augat sockets. BTW, there is a basic language for the 8008 that was published in book form. (The code is supplied in both 8008 and 8080 versions). I started out in computers by getting a 6502 processor at MosTechnology's booth during the 1976 ('75?) computer show in Atlantic City. I then bought a bunch of bare boards from OSI (series 400). I got 16k worth of ram boards, and the CPU board. Their boards could be populated with either 8 or 12 bit memory, and 6502, 6800, or 6100 (cmos PDP 8!) processors. I also obtained MosTechnology's TIM monitor chip. I scored 16K worth of 2102 ram chips at a Ham flea market. I got the 400 series 6502 working with a CRT terminal (it was a bare populated board, no case) and a surplus keyboard. I never got beyond running tiny basic on it though.

I have TWO of the "Bay Area ES 106" TVT's in my hand right now. I just dug them out of storage this afternoon and washed 30 years of dirt off. They are built up but one has a number of modifications and they both look like maybe they were bought as bare boards and the parts sourced locally as many of the parts are higher voltage or larger size than spec. I picked these up as surplus around 30 or so ago years ago for about $20 as I recall. I am going to try to get one working as it has all of the chips and doesn't look too bodged. I downloaded the assembly manual a while ago and am binding all of the various "TV Typewriters" together into sort of a reference manual. If I get one of the Electronic Systems boards working, I will post some video. I also have the Synertek SYM-1 which I believe was a counterpart of the Kim-1. 6502 processor, 1 K of memory, hex keypad, etc. I paid around $380 for it originally and later sprung for the $100 Basic ROM. I had my first TVT hooked to it so as to be able to write programs in Basic.

Since I do not know how you store these kits, plz accept the follow as purely suggestions: You should consider storing these kits in larger plastic bins, where there is room for the individual pieces (boxes/envelopes, boards, parts bags, chips, instructions, etc.) can be separately stored inside the larger bin with instructions/paperwork in sleeved binders. The purpose being, they can be viewed without wear and tear as well as stored moisture free and jarring about during movement. You also might consider offering photos online, so that people can reproduce these items on their own. If they are so rare, it could benefit history to at least have reproduction available are parties to share and encourage each other to build/learn/modify/adapt the kits.

In order to align the jigs for a double sided board you simply have to put one side down before etching then drill a few holes and use them for alignment of the second side.

If I could buy a kit laptop today, I would be soooo happy.

Oh lordy, it makes me feel so oooold, all that stuff was just coming up when I started work in microprocessors. Anyone want a z80 CP/M machine rotting in my garage? With a hard disk - whoa...

Basic in ROM, I kind of miss that feature. This is a cool look at kits!

CMOS parts back then were unbelievably sensitive to static damage. My first kit didn't work because of one ic that was zapped, and I used a static wrist connection and a grounded soldering iron. It was a Netronics Elf II and I sent it back for them to fix. Those were really different times back then.

I am now addicted to computer kits. I need serious help, I have like 4 now. Sure, they all "do the same thing" but OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO FUN

Back in the day most people had a TV, yes, but most people also had an assortment of radios, a cassette player, and/or phonographs. A hifi set containing all of the above was extremely common, then people often had portable cassette players, radios, etc.

My Uncle Leo Silvan owned Techniques... forwarded this video to my cousin if there is any more to the Mark-8 story.

These kits are neat as heck. My dad built an Altair some time before I was born. I'll have to look in the basement at my parents house to see if it's still there.

Some very nice vintage items:) But you should really build those kits and bring them to life. Right now they are dead and not very interesting except to us connoisseurs:) It's like those computer museums where nothing actually works....much better if everything could be running. I just found a very rare SC/MP kit, all there in the original folder, and I intend to build and connect it to the Teletype:) You are still preserving history by building them:))))

4:44 My brother and I built a number of Applied Tech's S100 boards (actually 'S-100' back then) and also the black cardframe. It was a good system and the DGOS ("dee-goss") monitor with hex editor on 2716 was pretty easy to use and could save to tape. It was all fine until one Saturday we went to Applied Tech's shop in a northern suburb of Sydney only to find not a trace of their S100 machines anymore. They had all gone and been replaced by the Microbee. The CEO of AT told us it was backwards compatible with the S100 system and that Microbee software would run on our machine. Well of course it wasn't that simple. The Microbee had a different keyboard setup which IIRC used the light pen input on the 6845 and any Microbee software needed patching to use the DGOS calls. I did do it for a few programs. Needless to say we were very annoyed about it all, after having spent a lot of money on building the computer. I modified the DG680 with a rocker switch on the top edge of the board to switch a 4MHx crystal, and replaced the CPU with a Z80A and it ran really well. Sometimes I could even switch from 2 to 4 MHz and it would continue to run but more often it needed a reset. I think the DG640 VDU was based on the SOL-20 video circuitry, certainly AT sold games such as Missile Defence that displayed 'Processor Technology' on the start screen. As the supplied MicroWorld BASIC was not very good, I ported TRS-80 LII BASIC to the machine by typing in the 12K of hex digits from the BASIC Decoded book over a few weeks, patched the keyboard and (I think) video start location. I made a replica TRS80 graphics character set for the PCG card and got MS Flight Simulator to run, made a 4 voice music synth speaker for it (from a BYTE article), also started writing a DOS for a Versafloppy II based on another BYTE article. I still have some of these bits of software, the rest went with the machine a long time ago.

The only thing missing from this is a cameo by Steve Ciarcia ! Ask him, you might get lucky 😘 P.S. I started with a Signetics 2650 (KT-9500 board) SWTPC keyboard and ...

@TechTimeTraveller Do you know where I can acquire those solder sockets that are on a reel?

Those pcb boards are so pretty...🤤

My ultimate completed goal. Building a PDP. My j11 looks good in a glass case, but I want to build a breakout for it. I love 60 Pin Dips. I want to uses it as the heart of a diy synth.

You used to get kits in Yugoslavia. They would just have the circuit boards embedded into the card board covers of magazines, with a few chips and such in a plastic bag stapled to it. Pretty cool, although I think most of them were Sinclair z80 knock offs

There is still active development on the Australian TEC-1 including new PCB's, check the Australian Vintage Computer Collectors group on FB.

Now I wish I had kept my Mark-8. It had a separate octal keypad and 2 digit, 7 segment display for inputting a program. I had about 2 years of the users group newsletter as well.

I still have my Imsai 8080. Every connection hand soldered. Total spent on it for chassis, boards, 70KB floppy drives, teletype, was about $7000..

my grandmother was a solder technician for southwestern bell for 20 years starting in the 1960's, she is still and has never known her way around computers or tech in general. just because you can micro--solder at an industrial level doesn't mean you are technologically inclined at the slightest

Awesome video!!! I also have an Altair 680 case and I'd love to get a nice copy of that Rev-0 board for it. Can you scan it so I can reproduce it?

I've always wanted to know about early kit computers and how they compared to later computers you could buy, plus how they compare to today's kit computers.

I wish all computers were sold this way still.

Hit me up if you ever want to replicate those PCBs. It's something I'd love to play with and these days professional PCBs are cheap.

This is fantastic content. Cannot believe there are less than 1000 people subcribed. @CallyWasHere