Great news everyone! The results of the Retro Reinvented contest are in it, and the creators of these three groovy projects each made $ 200 in online purchases at Digi-Key. We asked you to look deep into your stuff and find a way to modernize a cool old piece of gear, and we left it up to you to decide how much and at what age.
Whatever your personal vintage, you’ve probably used or even built an educational computer like [Michael Wessel]New generation microtronic. This is a recreation of an early 1980s West German 4-bit microprocessor trainer called the Busch 2090 Microtronic Computer System. You may never have heard of it, but [Michael] swear this is one of the best ever. Years ago, [Michael] made a talking Microtronic emulator based on Arduino and developed the concept into an award-winning system that uses an ATMega2560 Pro Mini and a Nokia 5110 display. As an added bonus, it also serves as a cassette interface emulator that plugs into the 2090’s expansion port. Take the time. of dive into youtube videos Where go straight for the gerbers and make your own.
EBTKS – a tape drive replacement for HP Series80 computers
Resurrected MK-52 calculator now does things she never could have dreamed of
Retro-computing fans will love it EBTKS, a project that seeks to bypass the disintegrating tape drives in the HP85A and other HP computers from the early 1980s by emulating them and delivering 20,000 virtual tapes through an SD card. The project started out as a solid state replacement using a Teensy and an ESP32, but [Philip] and the team realized they could do a lot more than that. The full feature list includes 70 new keywords and disk and tape drive emulation. Everything is explained in detail on the main project documentation site, where you will also find a practical user guide.
If you have a soft spot for old Soviet material, take a look [ptrav]MK-52 Resurrection. [ptrav] took an early 90s calculator with a vacuum fluorescent display and breathed new life into it with an ESP32 and a 320 × 240 TFT display. The goal is not just to resurrect the MK-52, but rather to bring it back to life. create a phoenix of programmable Soviet computing power that rises from the ashes and realizes its material potential. As part of the software development path, [ptrav] also built a fully functional C # simulator that you can consult on GitHub.
A very honorable mention
It’s always so hard to pick winners out of all the amazing projects we see. For this competition, we have chosen [Michael Gardi]’s WDC-1 – aka the Paperclip Computer – for an honorable mention. And that means more than just a published pat on the back – [Michael] won a $ 25 gift card for Tindie. Procedures, [Michael]!
This WDC-1 is a bit of an inverted version of the reimagined retro concept. Instead of new technology in an old box, [Michael] used modern circuit board fabrication and 3D printing to house the enhanced homebrew guts of this over 50-year-old computer design.
Congratulations to all the winners, and a big thank you to the 138 participants for your fake constructions inspiring nostalgia. Take some time this weekend to check them out and discover your alternate reality.
