Brain Boards Sold Out – summary of pending projects

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I built and tested the last two kits over the holiday break and sold them on eBay. I made 59 PCBs, and kept 1 for myself, so there are 58 that were sold, either as kits or fully assembled.

Once the initial interest passed, they were very slow sellers, so I’m not expecting to make any more. I have some ideas for an enhanced version, but that is very far down my list of things to do, so I don’t know if or when I’ll take the time to work on that.

Here are just a few projects on my backlog that are ahead of the enhanced Brain Board. These will easily keep me busy for a couple of years or more.

  • Finishing all the SCELBI I/O Boards
  • Getting Apple II RTTY on the air – reception is working – transmission software is coded, but needs lab testing prior to actual “on air” tests
  • Getting vintage computer Morse code encoder/decoder on the air – Jack Rubin sent me an early Byte Magazine article with a 8008 software package for this, so I’ll probably do this on the SCELBI
  • Fabricating SCELBI Chassis Components
  • Putting together the VCF East 10 display and “Fix It” lecture
  • Hack together a Mimeo with 20K DRAM
  • Move Apple II RTTY application to the Mimeo/Apple 1
  • I have identified another board that is rare, of historical significance and worthy of replication

    • I have other ideas, that are even further out, such as doing a Mark-8. If I did a Mark-8, I would probably etch my own boards. This would probably be pretty easy to do, as the artwork was published and there was no solder mask and the holes were not plated through. I don’t think I would make batches of boards for sale, as this has been done already, and some of the parts are in the harder to find category.

    I also really need to do a manual/book on the SCELBI and I have made some half hearted attempts to start this. The main obstacle is that I’d want to scan and OCR the original docs and that is a very laborious process.