News DIY Kit Lets You Build Your Own Apple I, No Soldering Required

[Admin]

The SmartyKit comes with everything you need to make a working replica of the first Apple computer.

DIY Kit Lets You Build Your Own Apple I, No Soldering Required : Read more

 

[Darkbreeze]

Having or finding an old system because it has historical or nostalgic value is one thing, and is understandable. BUILDING a system that old and slow, and spending that kind of money to DO it, seems like a lame waste of money to me. It won't be WORTH anything, to anybody but the person who bought it and after the five seconds of novelty wears off, it won't even be worth anything to them when they realize it's worthless except as a conversation piece.

I'd rather throw the 120 bucks down on the table and talk about IT.

 

[cryoburner]

I think it's meant to be thought of more as an educational tool. Something like this might be good for teaching kids about each of the parts that goes together to form a simple computer, and what each of those components does, for example. A class could then maybe learn a bit of BASIC programming and enter some simple programs in, with an explanation of what each chip is doing in response to each command. Something like a Raspberry Pi might be fine for teaching programming on, and probably a lot more useful as an end-product, but it's a system on a chip with a lot of complex systems obfuscating its operation from the end-user.

On a side note, if you search for SmartyKit on Amazon, you get a bunch of "SmartyKat" cat toys instead. : P

 

[Exploding PSU]

I'm more impressed with the fact that they can still source 6502 chips. I thought they all already melted for the gold long ago.

 

[Spinachy]

6502 cpus and support chips are still in production. There are also many, many (open source) FPGA implementations.

Smartykit seems to be a similar project to this Ben Eater 6502 tutorial and kit. I had a lot of fun, and learned a lot about microprocessors, by building the Ben Eater kit.

The Ben Eater kit has the advantage of not using arduino chips for its (admittedly more primitive) I/O.

 

[gargoylenest]

why? because apple fanboys will buy anything, as long as its overpriced and says its apple.

 

[rbanffy]

6502 cpus and support chips are still in production. There are also many, many (open source) FPGA implementations.

Smartykit seems to be a similar project to this Ben Eater 6502 tutorial and kit. I had a lot of fun, and learned a lot about microprocessors, by building the Ben Eater kit.

The Ben Eater kit has the advantage of not using arduino chips for its (admittedly more primitive) I/O.

I'd love to be able to run my Apple II's at 14 MHz...

 

[cleavet]

Briel Computers has offered an Apple I replica kit for a decade and a half: http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/

 

[khurtwilliams]

It's a novelty. Like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, this will occupy your mind for some time but once it's complete, it's completely useless.

 

[khurtwilliams]

I think it's meant to be thought of more as an educational tool. Something like this might be good for teaching kids about each of the parts that goes together to form a simple computer, and what each of those components does, for example. A class could then maybe learn a bit of BASIC programming and enter some simple programs in, with an explanation of what each chip is doing in response to each command. Something like a Raspberry Pi might be fine for teaching programming on, and probably a lot more useful as an end-product, but it's a system on a chip with a lot of complex systems obfuscating its operation from the end-user.

On a side note, if you search for SmartyKit on Amazon, you get a bunch of "SmartyKat" cat toys instead. : P

A Raspberry Pi or Arduino can teach the same and at the end is far more practical and useful. In the case of the RPi, you can even run a modern operating system and software.

 

[cryoburner]

What I'm saying is that a simple system with more well-defined individual components might be better for teaching what the basic parts of a computer do at a lower level. And it might provide a better idea of what early home computers were like, especially for those who may have only grown up with smartphones and multi-GHz, multi-core computers. That's not to say that newer hardware can't be used for education, but there's probably room for something like this as well.