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Kim Uno: A KIM-1 emulator on an Arduino Uno
KIM Uno. Turning the Arduino into a KIM-1 6502 single-board computer. Why not? Following up on my 6502 Microchess project, here is a reasonably faithful replica of the 6502 KIM-1. It can run either on...
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Making a modern low-cost KIM-1 board
This blog post is a work in progress. Upfront summary:Goal: produce a KIM-1 replica for less than $10 all-in. After getting a KIM-1 emulator running on either a bare Arduino Uno or the CH2 board (see...
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Article 4
Vintage Computer Festival -Â 18 & 19 October 2014 - Winterthur, SwitzerlandThe very cool people of VCFe have decided there will be a repeat of last year's Vintage Computer Festival in...
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New project: PiDP-8, a PDP-8/I Replica
Of all the PDP-8s, the 8/I is my favourite. Alas, getting a real one is impractical: they are pretty much impossible to obtain, and just as hard to maintain once you've found one. But asI learned from...
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VCF East X
So, the VCF East had its Xth anniversary this year. That came together nicely with the 50th anniversary of the PDP-8, the 40th of the IMSAI and the 30th of the Amiga. What a vintage year...The PDP-8...
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VCF Europa 16.0 in Munich
VCF Europa had its 16th incarnation on May 1-3 this year, with Eastern European micros as its theme. So I took the trip to Munich to enjoy a stroll past the hardware with the customary beer in hand....
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Making a Kit out of the PiDP-8
With the PiDP-8 development finished, it was time to make a batch of kits. Building for yourself is one thing. But doing a kit for others is something totally different. This blog page describes my...
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OSI-300 replica - a mini-mini 6502 front panel machine
Christopher from Randomvariations.com sold his OSI-300 replica at the VCF Midwest last month. It's a faithful reproduction of the first computer from OSI. Blinkenlights for $20!A quick introduction to...
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Making a LGP-30...
It gets worse, this thing of making simple replicas of old computers.Last fall Christopher (he of OSI-300 replica fame) showed me a LGP-30 simulator. I had heard of the 1956 LGP-30 "desk computer",...
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68k Macs - the Floppy Emu disk emulator
I've got quite a few posts on floppy drive replacements, as my love for retro excludes magnetic media. Today the Mac Plus got treated with the Floppy Emu from Big Mess o' Wires, a.k.a. Steve. It's a...
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VCF Southeast 4.0
New year, new VCF. The VCF Southeast 4.0 this time, in Roswell, Georgia.Lots of interesting computers, lots of interesting people. This was an excellent show, and below is a selection of exhibits that...
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Using the SIMH LGP-30 emulator
This is a how-to post on using the simh LGP-30 emulator. Only the bare minimum of information is available from its documentation; other than that, this post on vintagecomputer.net helped me to figure...
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Bringing a PDP-8/I front panel to life
Panelman Rod manufactures replacement front panel covers for a whole range of DEC systems. And I already had an original 8/I front panel unit, lying around - beauty without brains. Now I've got two...
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The UNO1802: A Cosmac Elf for $13 in parts...
The 1802 CPU has intrigued me for a long time.One of the earliest CPUs (1976), it is quite different from its more well-known contemporaries. But a rather elegant design makes programming it quite...
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Gigatron: homebrew CPU, homebrew computer
A small computer board that **could** have been made in the 70s, before single-chip microprocessors even existed. A complete CPU made out of just a few simple logic chips laid out so you can visually...
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Starting to make a PiDP-11/70
I spent last year learning about the PDP-8, but maybe 12 bits are not enough after all. So my new obsolete project will be a very-low-cost remake of the 16-bit PDP-11/70. Using the same approach as the...
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SC130: the perfect CP/M & Fuzix computer kit (at $49!)
It's been a while since I last wrote a blog post. So what's new anno 2020? Well, for one, Spencer Owen has revived interest in Z80 homebrewing with his RC2014. This post is about my personal favourite...
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Inevitaby, the PiDP-10...
When I made my PDP-8 replica, I felt that 12 bits should be enough for everyone. After a while, though, even the 16 bits of my PDP-11 replica felt constraining. So now: 36 bits! Why not afford yourself...
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A Turist's Guide to ITS
ITS was an operating system developed at the Artificial Intelligence lab at MIT, during the 1960s-80s. It is famous for many things and many people; you should read the wikipedia article for...
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Cloning a 6502 Apple-1 in just 930 logic gates
Two years ago, the Gigatron arrived on the retrocomputing scene.It needs just 930 logic gates (packed into 33 standard 7400-series ICs) to create a computer that beat 'complex' 1980s home computers...
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Well worth a visit: Bonami computer museum (Holland)
And so, this week, the members of the Dutch CVML - Computer Collectors' Mailing List - had a post-Corona meeting. I think it was Roland who suggested that the Bonami computer museum in Zwolle would be...
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Article 1
Vintage Computer Festival Zurich 2022Â The VCF Zurich this year was as busy as it used to be before you-know-what. Well over 1,000 people visited.I used the event to have the (why not use big words)...
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The $2 Apple-1
Time to make my KIM Uno compatible with the Apple-1 as well as the KIM-1.There is something about old, minimal 6502 Single-Board Computers. Their early software was pure art. Small but beautiful,...
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Stack buffer overflow attack: 211BSD on the PDP-11
What to do with a PDP-11? Or, same thing, with a modern PiDP-11 replica?Well, if you lack any productive ideas, maybe hack your way into it. A PDP-11 is a (in fact, the original) networked unix...
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Insights from software archaeology: SHRDLU and AI
 Whilst working on my PiDP-10 replica and the ITS operating system, I found that Lars had actually recovered the famous SHRDLU demo from the MIT AI Lab's archives.I knew about SHRDLU, having seen the...
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