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What kits are currently available?

arrow_runner

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Joined
Mar 7, 2012
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Cincinnati Ohio
I just received my XT-IDE board from lynchaj. I also have the XT-FDC board from him and then remembered that mmruzek is selling 5150 clone motherboard kits at http://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html.

Is there anything in the works for video, sound, serial/parallel or even LAN cards? Power supplies too. I'm just curious if it's currently possible to build a whole system, aside from the drives, from a kit. Computer kits were long gone by the time I came of age so I never had the chance to build one.
 
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I could use a circuit diagram for a common PC power supply - with all the usual protections - to suit an older AT style machine.

I have a few machines with proprietary power supplies that have died. Would be nice to be able to route a new board on the computer, get the PCB made up, pop on some brand new quality components, and replace it. For some I can retrofit an ATX supply but others (like my Model 30) it's not square enough.
 
Is there anything in the works for video, sound, serial/parallel or even LAN cards?

I designed and have PCBs for:
- ISA OPL2 (an Adlib-like sound card)
- ISA Floppy and Serial controller card. Similar to XT-FDC, but simpler more straight-forward approach. As the name states, it also has a serial port (UART).
- Xi 8088. This is an advanced XT processor board. Still based on 8088 (or V20) CPU. But compared to a PC/XT it has PS/2 keyboard/mouse controller, RTC/CMOS, second PIC...

I am also working on the following:
- ISA Super VGA card. I actually assembled a prototype yesterday, and so far it works perfectly. I think Michael Mruzek wanted to make kits based on this design.
- My version of XT-CF-Lite. This is pretty much complete, and I need to order a production batch of PCBs.

I also used to offer an ISA Backplane, but currently I am out of PCBs.

Note that I am offering just PCBs for most of the designs above. Builders have to get their own parts. Except of ISA Floppy and Serial controller, for which I also offer PC8477BV-1 FDC ICs.

I'm just curious if it's currently possible to build a whole system, aside from the drives, from a kit. Computer kits were long gone by the time I came of age so I never had the chance to build one.

I built my own system from PCBs that I have designed and electronic components, excluding the case, disk drives, power supply, and peripherals (display, keyboard, mouse)...

If you want just to build a computer (not a PC-compatible one), it might be simpler to start with Z80-based designs, such as N8VEM or my Zeta SBC.
 
You guys are amazing

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Better to ask what aren't there kits for. We've got the mainboard, video, audio, and storage accounted for. What else is left? Is there an ISA NIC kit available?
 
A NIC is not available as far as I know... It shouldn't be too difficult to build a NIC using components like Realtek RTL8019AS or Nat Semi DP8390 (for these who don't like SMT components). But it is not something I am planing to do, at least not in the near future.

Other than that, the inventory and pricing of my and other N8VEM boards are available on this N8VEM Wiki page.
 
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