Cory | Jan. 27, 2023

Great 68k Kit

For rosco-m68k Classic V2

I had a blast building this- the kit is through hole so assembly went by very quickly what ended up taking more time was the getting a pretty enclosure and spending time actually working on writing code for this- I made a video about this if you want to check out how assembly went for me. https://youtu.be/QzF8xTOwsJM

Its a shame this has been out of stock for some time- it was a darn good kit with very nice assembly instructions!

Response from The Really Old-School Company Ltd | Aug. 22, 2023

Hi Cory!

I don't know how but I somehow missed this until now! Sorry about that!

Thank you so much for your order and for leaving this review, and thanks for your (awesome by the way!) YouTube video too! Really glad you enjoyed building the kit and it was amazing to see the build 😃

It's been a long road with the semiconductor shortage but stock is gradually becoming available again, it's selling out as fast as we can put kits together and I bet your video is helping with that, so thanks again 😊

Cheers,
Ross

Richard | April 15, 2021

No hitches apart from slow component delivery due to COVID.

For Rosco-m68k Revision 1.23

The BOM has been easy to satisfy apart from the 68010. Still waiting.

The serial interface could be improved if the pin out matched commonly available USB serial modules.

Response from The Really Old-School Company Ltd | May 9, 2021

Thanks for your review, and sorry to hear you are still waiting for a CPU. These are unfortunately becoming quite hard to find.

The pinout of the serial interface on the 1.2 board is designed to match most commonly-available FTDI USB serial modules, but sadly they do vary a bit and so not all of them match :(

Thanks again, and happy hacking!
Ross

Alexander | Dec. 12, 2020

good kit and nice change from CP/M projects

For Rosco-m68k Revision 1.23

I've built a number of retro-homebrew systems and find the Rosco-m68k a nice change from having to use CP/M and its ancient commands and compilers. Having a GCC-based toolchain opens up all sorts of possibilities to port existing modern code. If you're on Linux, I recommend still using 'brew' to install the toolchain, as there may be problems getting a current GCC to build the older version used in the toolchain.

Persistent storage would be nice, but it's not that bad to upload programs each time considering the tradeoff of not having to put up with CP/M.

Response from The Really Old-School Company Ltd | March 14, 2021

Thanks for the review Alexander, really glad you're happy with the kit :) A modern toolchain and development experience are an important goal for this project. Rest assured that various options for persistent storage is being worked on already, and will be available very soon :)

Thanks again,
Ross

Matthew | Dec. 4, 2020

Really nice kit.

For Rosco-m68k Revision 1.23

Super kit. Worked pretty much straightaway with great software support and is building a nice little community.

Response from The Really Old-School Company Ltd | March 14, 2021

Thanks for the review Matthew, really glad you're happy with the kit :)

Thanks again,
Ross

John | Nov. 9, 2020

Very useful add-on

For 1/2/3/4MB RAM Expansion for rosco_m68k

Having already purchased and played with the standalone 1.2 main board, I decided to put together a larger system - 9MB memory, where I would implement a 2M RAM Drive for a workspace. To get this done, I needed more memory so acquired the bus board and a memory card, with a second to follow down the road. The kit is straight forward to assemble and easy to configure. Only issue- you need a very small soldering tip because of the closeness of the contacts for the sole transistor on the board. I had to use an xacto knife to make sure that they weren't shorting. That said, the kit assembles in a few hours. Minimal tools needed: wire cutters, needle nose pliers, temperature controlled soldering iron (with small tip) and a VOM. Very clean assemble and except for the caution required in soldering the transistor, very easy to assemble. Great kit. Great support, Great value.

Response from The Really Old-School Company Ltd | Nov. 10, 2020

Hi John!

Thanks for the reviews, and for the kind words! Noted your points about the documentation and transistors, I'm planning to do a big overhaul of the documentation over the Christmas holidays, and will definitely be changing the transistor footprint in the next board revision.

Thanks again,
Ross