make your own PC? **Nastalgia**

[YNos]

Has anyone else here ever built their own PC? not talking about going to tiger.com, am talking about going down to your local hobby electronics shops and getting a Z80, 8212's, 8t97's, 2114's...etc.
was digging thru my basement and ran across my first computer.. a z80, 2k eprom, 1k ram, 2 8 bit input ports.
was digging around to see if this is still done... looks like a little bit, but not even close to as much..

looks like i may have to have a little fun again.

anyone know if there are some active groups still homebrewing machines?

 

[TuxDave]

So... uh... what do you do with it when it boots up?

 

[MadEye2]

My dad did one of those projects, well, he started one, that I know. I can't remember him finishing it though.
I wonder if they'll ever make a new version of those projects/magazine, with 486/586 generation technology.

 

[YNos]

i did a few things. my typing teacher at the time blew an eprom with basic so i could learn basic. after that, i had learned C, making anything from hello world to a crappy little accounting program for the family business.

 

[MisterChief]

Believe it or not, but I still own a Timex/Sinclar 1000 with all the manuals, dozens of programing books, a tape recorder, and even some 16kb memory modules! Served me well....

 

[Mark R]

When I was at high school, I took an electronics class. My teacher told me how he had built the school a computer to handle accounts and keep a record of educational performance of all the pupils.

At the time I was at school 386s were all the rage, and I had toyed with building a PC myself.

What I didn't realise was that he built it about 10 years earlier. He actually meant that he designed and etched the motherboard by hand, hand soldered all the RAM, CPU and other chips, built the CGA graphics board and floppy drive interface board by hand, as well as writing the OS from scratch.

 

[MadEye2]

Then you opened the case and saw "made in Malaysia" stamped on the components? j/k

 

[sao123]

I still have an original TI994A personal computer from 1980. It still works and i am having fun rediscovering all the games...

Munch Man
The Attack
Blasto
Car Wars

 

[ScottMac]

I had some S100 machines.

My primary box was an IMSAI 8080 and 8" floppy cabinet (like the blue computer in the "War Games" movie).

I didn't build the chassis, but I did build a 64K static RAM, an EPROM programmer, and a serial board or two from a kit.

It came with a 1Mhz 8080 CPU. I replaced it with a 2Mhz Z80. By the time I gave it up, I had a 14" winchester, Tarbell Tape controller, 64K static RAM, punch & reader, and an EPROM programmer. The power supply was something like ~50amp linear ... you could pretty much arc weld with it ...

It was running CP/M 2.1 and was dial-up capable at up to 1200 baud (Bell 202).

Last I heard it was in the DEC computer museum in Boston (donated by the guy that bought it from me).

I also had an Altos, NorthStar, and Cromemco.

I still have a Heath/Zenith Z100 with a pair of five inch floppies and a Halzetine 925 terminal. I gave away the Diablo 630 some time ago to a friend that need to print some NCR invoices for his business.

I also had an Apple II (later with a Microsoft Z80 card running CP/M and better BASIC - MBasic 5.0).

(BTW: I still have a set of Apple II repair chips and the origianl game tapes that came with the computer - Star Trek, Breakout, Life, Biorhythm...)

Good Times, fer sher.

FWIW

Scott

 

[bobsmith1492]

Well I didn't build it, but it was a TRS-80 all-in-one with 64k ram and 2x5 1/2 floppies, no OS. All I could do was basic and then leave it on until I didn't care about the program any more.

 

[plastick]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
So... uh... what do you do with it when it boots up?

LOLOLOL!!


YEAH... What??

 

[Terumo]

One of my relative's first computer was a kit based Timex Sinclair (which required soldering the parts together). He later gave it to me and that was my first computer back in 1982. Didn't start building my own computers until the 386's came out (and prices came down).

 

[Vee]

I did actually build my first computer. No kit. wired together. (2MHz? could that be right?) 8080, 8 (eight!) inch floppy. Originally 16KB, later 64KB. CP/M.

I think you should split 808X in the poll to 8080-8085 (8bit) and 8088/8086 (16-bit)

 

[FrankSchwab]

It's not really worth the effort to go back to CPU/RAM/ROM/IO designs. If you've got the itch, build something with a Renesas M32c micro (33 MHz, 512K Flash, 24K RAM, I/O out the wazoo, all on a single chip) (Free design kit if you enter the design contest) or any of a million other all-in-one micros that make your life easier - many have an external bus so you could use external RAM/ROM if you wished. Use a PCB service to build your PC Board (Circuit Cellar advertises a handful that will make and ship you 3 or 4 small double-sided boards for << $100). Port CP/M to it, and have the world's fastest retro experience, on a board the size of a PCMCIA card.

/frank

 

[SagaLore]

My first computer was a Commodore 64.

 

[FrustratedUser]

6502 Assembly was the shiznit back then.

 

[YNos]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
6502 Assembly was the shiznit back then.

looks like the idea of the 6502 is still alive and kicking.

6502.org was thinking about trying some of these out.

 

[Jeffyboy]

I built my own machine. Had 32K of ram, a 4K basic interpreter and a 4K BIOS... based on an 8085. I also bought radio shacks SPO256 chipset which added voice synthesis. I actually wire-wrapped it all together on a big perfboard and every time i powered on my little machine with a homebuilt 5V power supply... it would say "Ok"... hehe. I wrote a little basic program to make this thing speak whatever I typed to it. Great little machine... I should have kept it.... for something..lol.

http://www.speechchips.com/downloads/sp0256al2.pdf

Jeff

 

[Jeffyboy]

Ok, I had a TI99/4A long time ago as well. Was a cool little machine, I should have kept it.

Jeff

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: YNos

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
6502 Assembly was the shiznit back then.

looks like the idea of the 6502 is still alive and kicking.

6502.org was thinking about trying some of these out.

Cool stuff. I need to get back to it. Would be fun to use one of those modern 6502 compatible microcontrollers to make telemetry system for RC models.

 

[KalTorak]

I've designed three motherboards and built systems around them... that should count...