In my youth, I would take apart various electronic games, un-soldering and re-soldering them, and taking pride in the fact that that the successful operation on the device worked. With respect to my first computer - a TRS-80, however, it would have been beyond all reason to vivisect such an investment. An old TV, a radio? Who cared. But my computer? No way.
Back then computer magazines would advertise computers that you could assemble yourself. Although interesting, I did not have the confidence that to build a computer, nor the resources.
Time jump to to the late 20th century, then an adult without any technical training, I often fixed tower computers and even built a few. Jump again to today and the advancements in technology, most computers are single-board devices. Alas, there's nothing to assemble and little that can be repaired. Not that that hasn’t stopped me.
A few years ago while browsing the web, I discovered PDP kit replicas. Intrigued by the possibility of not only building, but operating my own PDP-8, I took the bait. Thus began my new hobby into vintage computers.
Big time jump to the dawn of microcomputing, albeit through the lens of retro kits. Starting with the PiDP-8(1), I then went on to build a PiDP-11(2), an Altair 8800(3), an IMSAI 8080(4), and finally a KIM-1(5) - all computers that I had only read about were now at my fingertips.
