Last time I opened my skeleton closet I found a small board with a stereo amplifier based on an ST IC I soldered 25 years ago. I was quite recently working on photonic-electronic integration. I suspect that if we make a poll, most of Greek coin collectors in this forum have an Electrical/Electronic engineering, telecom or informatics background I doubt there isany archeologist here, is there ?!
"So many things to tinker with, so little time..." - exactly I have a houseful of gadgets/junk and maybe finally the time to do something with them. Impressive to build a video display from 1980s stuff - much easier to code up a VGA display driver on an FPGA! There are some impressive projects on the Web which put Z80s running CP/M on a cheap FPGA board with a serial terminal to a PC or whatever (real terminal for extra kudos!). Some masochists still build things from 74 TTL chips and wirewrap them, but I'd prefer to have everything in Verilog! Yeah, coin collecting seems to appeal to techies, @pprp ATB, Aidan.
Dingdingding! I should've said "built in the early 1980s, but with mid-1970s technology". Almost all 74LS TTL -- I think there was one 74H I used as a driver, and the RAMs were static CMOS. Coupla loose transistors to do video levels. And it was all on solderless breadboards, because I was making it up as I went along rather than starting from a design. Attached to a baking sheet for a ground plane. Doing it today, though? I think that's getting into the realm of "historical re-enactment".
Who could afford Z-80 chips. 3 of us Hams built our own SBC using 8008s. 1KB of memories chips cost over $100. Eventually bought a S-100 unit and Apple II #00040 board. The Apples used mostly 7400 series and I made extra money by repairing them ( just replacing 7400 chips until it ran again) 1970s!!, has it really been 50 years
I have a FEDEX envelope waiting by the door unopened for 14 days. Should I open it, what do you think, is it safe?
Depends what is inside the letter.... If its a nice coin, I would open it, if its a bill.....leave it for another couple of weeks