great weekend project
For Altair-Duino Experimenter
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.