Tindie

I've made a much older version of this kit years ago, with a bamboo box. I love it, and decided recently to pick up a new and improved version. It arrived quickly and I got to work putting it together, but unfortunately I realized that I didn't put the header pins on the right way around (you're supposed to have the long ends sticking out towards where the arduino will be mounted), and the arduino didn't make good enough contact with the PCB, making it unusable. While that is absolutely my fault, I will say that I think the manual should include some warnings to double check critical components such as that before committing to soldering them, not just a picture of the arduino with the pins on it. Ultimately however it would probably be best to do this kit in breaks, as at least for me I tend to zone out and not pay as much attention after spending long periods soldering.

I reached out to Chris over email and asked him if I could send my kit in for repair, as I did not know at the time that you could simply cut the header pin plastic separators off and then desolder each pin much more easily. He quickly responded and agreed to have it sent over. Unfortunately UPS lost my board during shipping, and after I got the insurance check I ordered another PCB and set of components to make a new board. I've learned a lot from that experience.

Here's a few suggestions:

Make sure you pay close attention to the color and type of your toggle switches, as well as which direction you solder them! There's no going back once you commit. Top row of switches should on/off toggles, as well as the power switch on the bottom row. The bottom row of switches however is a series of momentary toggles.

There's no mention of which side the 47uF capacitor should face, but you should pay close attention to the picture and make sure the side with the line is oriented properly.

On my first PCB I found that the LEDs didn't sit flush. With the new PCB I found that if I gently shook the LEDs once they had already dropped into the front panel, they'd seat better. Then I just used my tweezers to gently guide the remaining ones down so that all of them fit flush in the panel. I found that soldering one side at a time kept the components from getting hot, especially the header pins, sockets, LEDs, and capacitors, so it might be a good idea to do them just like the toggle switches later on in the manual. It also makes it easier to keep the LEDs in alignment.

If you ever need to remove header pins you simply cut the plastic off with your cutters, then heat the solder up and use tweezers to gently push out the pin. Afterwards you can use some flux on the pin and solder wick to suck up the solder. You may want to go back and hit it with your solder sucker as well to remove any remaining solder from the pin so that a new header will fit. Don't tug if the pin doesn't want to come out, and do not let your iron sit too long on the joint. You can risk damaging the pad. If the pin isn't coming free try using more flux and adding more solder.

For removing the switches you can add enough solder to bridge the three terminals, then heat it up and gently rock the switch out. Afterwards do the same thing as you would after removing header pins to clean up the holes. You will destroy the switch, but it will be removed.

Jayson | Nov. 27, 2023

Good kit with a few hiccups

I built an older version 1.5.2 I had over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Very nice kit and the inclusion of a printed manual was extremely welcome. Soldering all the components onto both boards was very easy. However, I have to deduct one star from the case assembly. Going in the order of operations of putting the I/O panel on and then the back acrylic didn't work well for me, resulting in me cracking one piece. Much easier to fit the PCB in afterward. Then the black cover for the I/O ports was off a bit. The holes for the mounting bolts were almost 1/8" of an inch off between the back acrylic and the black cover, and the SD card port needed to be opened up about 1/16" of an inch more to fit.

One thing I'll say to any prospective buyers is once this is fully assembled, it's going to be challenging and fiddly to open up and make changes, so I feel very committed to my dip switch settings now. There's no easy way to just pop part of it off to change things.

Joel | Feb. 6, 2023

This is a tiny version of the first personal computer.

For 50th Anniversary nanoKENBAK-1

This is a fun learning toy. The interface is extremely primitive with both input and output in binary bytes. There is a good amount of documentation and exercises available for download. While there were only around 50 of these sold, I am curious what the original purchasers used them for. Was it an expensive toy to learn skills for work, or did they write programs they found useful for home use?

Response from Adwater & Stir | March 16, 2023

Thanks for your purchase! The original units were mostly sold to high schools and colleges to give students an introduction to machine language programming. The inventor has said he probably should have expanded his marketing beyond schools.

David | Jan. 16, 2023

Great product!

This was a fun kit to put together. Very professionally made. The only issue we had was in assembling the case. There was a drop of the coating that was a bit too thick on the metal casing which made it very difficult to get one of the handles on. Otherwise, everything was great.

Cool looking replica!

Terry | May 19, 2022

Bloody marvelous and great fun!

A wonderful and nostalgic project. I thoroughly enjoyed building this kit! I'm back to simpler times in the computer world!

Thank you! :)

Katie | Nov. 10, 2021

What a lovely product!

For 50th Anniversary nanoKENBAK-1

This is a wonderful product! Really well executed and presented. It is great fun showing it to youngsters and seeing their expression when I explain that when I was young this was bleeding edge home computing technology!! ;-)

Steve | Nov. 6, 2021

Great kit

Really nailed the look with materials that are still available. Great materials and documentation. What more can you ask for?

Vicente | Sept. 22, 2021

Fantastic kit

Easy to assemble and fun to use. Don't need one hundred character to said it, thanks tindie for asking

Kirk | Sept. 6, 2021

Another great kit!

Another great kit from a great seller! Fantastic communication and support! Excellent documentation and instructions. Thanks!

Chad | July 13, 2021

Awesome Retro Goodness

This kit was a dream. It is well documented, well-designed, well-assembled, and purchasers are set up for success to build the kit and enjoy the retro computing. As someone who was old enough to read about the Altair, but too young to get one, I experienced some of the most fond feelings from the early days of my attraction to computers.

Stephen | June 29, 2021

Looks great

A nice easy build for anyone with reasonable soldering skills. Looks great. Only played with it very quickly but the documentation gets you up to speed to load and run some programs

Joseph | March 27, 2021

Fantastic Kit

I highly recommend this kit. The build is relatively easy, and all of the parts are provided (including a couple of spare LEDs, resistors, etc). I would think that someone with moderate soldering skills could be up and running after only a few hours. The experience of running the replica is great. If you enjoy vintage computing, but don't have a ton of extra space for hardware (or aren't interested in investing significantly more cash), you really can't go wrong with this kit. The maker is active on the forum, along with a number of others who have built this kit, other kits, and in some cases, even built/used the original hardware.

This thing just checks all the boxes for me. I couldn't be happier with the purchase.

Marco | March 21, 2021

Beautiful kit to build

Received this kit, it was fun to build it. Documentation was really good and easy to build.
Now going back in time and start programming it.
Highly recommended:-)

Masaki | Feb. 10, 2021

Lots of soldering, but lots of fun awaits

The kit was received in tightly packed box. Comes with detailed instruction book.
Prepare to do a lot of soldering. Compared to solder job I used to do 35 years ago, the solder pads are smaller, component leads are thinner and my eyes are ailing so it was tad difficult to do good soldering job. Then there are tons of mechanical switches to solder on the board, which seem to demand insatiable amount of solder. My initial work had several missed solder joints on control board, a couple of bridged solder points on Arduino area that resulted in misbehaving of the board (switch not recognized, LED not turning on etc.,) . Luckily I had a good magnifying loupe to inspect the PCB and was able to retouch those problem area.
Also pay a good attention to jumpers that need to be in place. Those are clearly shown in the picture of instruction book but somehow I missed one jumper that needed to be inserted.

Once assembled, kit is fun to play with. A computer with toggle switches have some attraction even compared to the ones with HEX keypad. I re-lived the time of toggling in the Octal codes to enter a program to micro computer. How were we able to afford such a laborious method!? Then once configured for CP/M boot with Z80 emulation and communicating with terminal program on my PC, I was able to XM.com to receive Turbo pascal 3 and was writing Hello World as I was doing many years ago.

Highly recommended.

Matthias | Feb. 7, 2021

great weekend project

My own history was more on the Commodore world of the 80s, but when I learned about the Altair years ago, it really fascinated me with its Blinkenlights. I was quite excited when I heard about the Altair-Duino on a retro computing podcast, and decided to order one.

Of course, living in Germany, I did not expect too fast a shipment, but the tracking information showed it arriving in Frankfurt after just a week and a half. Not bad, given the current Covid-induced shipping situation. It sat in customs for another week, but then I finally held it in hands.

Building was easy. The kit is well thought out in how the components are spaced out and in how in the end it all matches to the openings in the case. I have soldered a few smaller projects in the past, and with my limited experience soldering this one was very easy. It's all through-the-whole, no surface-mount, and all the parts fit exactly (well, the transistors could have benefited from a bit more guidance, I almost mounted them too high above the PCB). Overall, the instructions are good, and they give all the necessary hints (e.g. putting the headers on the Arduino before placing and soldering to the PCB). I strongly recommend to follow instructions exactly, including the little bit of stock-taking on the first pages; not just to ensure the kit is complete (it was, with some spares to boot), but also to know later which piece could be meant in a given step (e.g. the two different kinds of screws).

The SW sampler on the SD card is a very good start (except Wordstar, which was "configured" for some strange terminal, which I found no way to emulate; but it's easy to find a Wordstar that is adapted to VT102). After finishing the build, the documentation gets a bit thin and unorganized (in my opinion). But with a little bit of digging, everything can be found somewhere online, from how to assemble short programs on paper and DEPOSIT NEXTing them into memory, through the "shortcuts" this particular emulator offers (loading SW with AUX1 and AUX2), up to complete manuals of complex SW like Wordstar.

Now I am looking forward to finding and dusting off up my WYSE serial terminal for the full retro feel. Until then, I will make do with "Cool Retro Term" (an X11 terminal emulator that looks like a clunky CRT monitor), via USB.

In summary, a fun project to assemble, and a great toy for me as a retro fan.

Graham | Feb. 4, 2021

Its a beautiful thing.

Always wanted to find one of these to renovate. Then found this gorgeous replica. Its fits the bill perfectly. Beautifully designed and functions perfectly, and has so many features built in. If you are true retro lover and retro programmer you will spend many evenings having fun programming this beauty.

Roland | Jan. 25, 2021

Ein großartiges Retro-Erlebnis

Der Bausatz für den Altair-Duino ist hervorragend zusammengestellt. Nach etwa 6 Stunden Arbeit steht eine tolle Nachbildung eines Altair 8800 vor mir, der ohne Probleme sofort zu 100% funktionierte. Man sollte sich beide Anleitungen (PDF und im Internet) ansehen, hilfreiche Tipps zum Aufbau sind gut beschrieben. Auch die mitgelieferte Software (inklusive BASIC Interpreter) ist sehr hilfreich. Alles in allem - TOP

The kit for the Altair-Duino is superbly put together. After about 6 hours of work, a great replica of an Altair 8800 is in front of me, which immediately worked 100% without any problems. You should look at both instructions (PDF and on the Internet), helpful tips for setting up are well described. The software supplied (including the BASIC interpreter) is also very helpful. All in all - TOP

Willem | Jan. 5, 2021

A joy to build and use.

The kit has excellent documentation and is a well designed and logically laid out. The Pro case is like putting together a lego and is half the project. My kit was missing the SD module and Chris sent one right away. Great quality and customer service overall.

Richard | Dec. 15, 2020

Awesome in a box!

A professional and well documented kit that is so satisfying to build and operate. Loved the way it came boxed. Assembly is straightforward. LED positioning is tricky so take it in groups. The switches are a bit hard to push into the board but line up great when done. Only issue I had was inserting on of the IC chips. Really my fault and not the kit. The case is very well designed and gives the project a really cool retro look. Mine worked right after completing assembly with no issues. Overall this is such a cool kit!

David | Oct. 16, 2020

Received in excellent condition

The Altair-Duino Standard arrived well packaged and in excellent condition. All the parts are there. However, I won't be able to build it for a couple month when the snow keeps me inside. Looking forward a nice project!

John | April 29, 2020

This is a great kit. The construction video is really good.

The parts went together very well. I have not tested it yet as I had to order a keyboard and monitor.

John D

Bill | April 26, 2020

µKenbak-1

This kit from Chris is easy to build & fun to use.
It's also very educational.
The kit includes everything you need to build a very smart looking machine, including a spiral bound assembly & operational manual.
You also have 4 manuals available online, see the link at the last page of the included manual.
I highly recommend this kit for anyone who is interested in vintage computing, as an entry into digital electronics, or for educational reasons.

Cheers to you Chris !!!

Bill S.

Chris | Feb. 11, 2020

What a kit!

Just a fantastic experience building this kit. The instructions are very clear and the PCBs (there are two in the Pro kit) are clearly laid out and marked. The quality of the acrylic sheets and the overall design are superb. I love the attention to detail while ensuring that the completed kit is relatively compact. I found the Pro kit strong enough to hold my older Dell LCD monitor which works well with the VGA VT-100 emulation.

The implementation of the emulator is very nice and feature rich. Lots of software comes with the device, so you can be booted into CP/M and playing games or programming in Assembly rather quickly after completing the hardware. Of course, you can also just play Kill The Bit, either by requesting the in-ROM version or switching it in manually -- which you should do, for full effect.

Cannot recommend enough for anyone with a love for retro computing.

Chris | Jan. 16, 2020

Very enjoyable kit

Very straightforward kit in a quality enclosure with a relatively accurate aesthetic. A unique little machine that can be very fun to play with. Serial is a nice touch. Very happy with my purchase.

William | Dec. 15, 2019

Cool replica

I love retro builds and replicas and this is a good addition to your collection for a great price. Seller was very good about responding to questions.

Arnaud | Nov. 30, 2019

Simply put, an amazing recreation of the Altair 8800!

A fantastic product. Package was delivered in very good conditions and the various parts were very well protected. When opening it I was very impressed at the documentation coming with it - whic allowed me to build the complete unit in a few hours (my only mistake was the soldering on the SD reader on the wrong place... leading to some painful unsoldering minutes). The case for the Pro version is quite easy to assemble as well and the result looks absolutely great on my desk. System works like a charm and I was able to start loading some programs within minutes after starting up the first time.
Thanks a ton Chris for the amazing work. Looking fwd to the next ideas!

Alexander | March 18, 2019

Cool kit! Fun and good looking

I love history of computers and made a lot of replicas for my collection. This one is easy to made, cool looking and VERY interesting in historical aspect. Original Kenbak-1 was developed BEFORE classical 8 bit micros so its was new experience to me. Very fun and unusual. Highly recommend this kit. Price is very fair, documentation good and complete. One evening with kit and you can impress friends or colleagues explaining this strange blinking thing. 👍😎

Ryan | Nov. 22, 2018

Well done.