TomXP411 wrote:So after finishing the computer, there are a couple of things I should comment on.
Awesome!
TomXP411 wrote:Overall, this conversion is pretty painless. Get 20mm standoffs. I bought a pack for about $10 on Amazon that had several lengths; the "Raspberyy Pi" ones are too small in diameter - you should be looking for 6mm screws. (PC screws are 6-32).
Glad it was pretty painless. I decided to use female-on-both-end standoffs for as much wiggle room as possible when getting everything to fit. Eases the pain a bit (I'm sure it was still somewhat of a pain :-D)
TomXP411 wrote:The hiccups: the cassette board below the mainboard is a known issue, so I knew to deal with that ahead of time. I chose not to install the board, but just to bring out the serial port. I'm going to write a program that runs on the PC and looks like a cassette or paper tape reader, which just dumps files out to the serial port at 300 baud.
Seems like a good enough fix. I had one corner of the cassette interface that was in the way, and my revision of the interface board didn't have any circuitry there so I hacked it off with a dremel tool. Still works, but it could have easily gone south.
TomXP411 wrote:I also had a little trouble attaching the DB25 jacks in the space above the slot covers; I didn't have "the claw", so I was not able to hold the nuts while re-attaching the screws to hold the sockets in place. My advice there is to definitely have a pair of needle nose pliers on hand before attempting the move.
Same here. Everything in that area is kind of cramped and tight. Many curses uttered getting those DB-25s in.
TomXP411 wrote:Also, I don't remember how you got the power switch to work on your system... did you attach to one of the AUX switches? I was pondering using the right AUX switch for power and reset, but I'm not sure if that's tied in to the PIC or just there for looks. So my solution was a wireless power switch. The package comes with a keychain fob that looks exactly like car alarm fob... I can click that to turn the computer on, even if I'm not sitting in front of it.
I did use the right AUX switch, but went a little overboard. Stock from Mike, the clone has a 3-pin header (I had to solder in the pins) that connects to the right AUX switch that work well for on/off/reset action. I had originally had it so up was power and down was reset. I don't *think* the right Aux switch goes to anything else but Mr. Douglas would have to confirm. It worked great for that though.
For mine, I didn't like not having direct feedback of the on/off status of the ATX machine so I installed
a submicro toggle switch with an LED in the center and wired the whole thing to an adafruit microcontroller to pulse relays on and off. WAY overboard.
I also wanted to experiment with these
illuminated buttons. They were just a *hair* too big though (8mm vs 0.25in), I would have had to drill out the front panel and didn't want to.
I like the wireless power switch idea. Nice and clean, no modification, and its a simple solution. My power switch is anything but simple. As an added bonus of having an adafruit microcontroller handling the pulsing, I also installed a remote control because... why not?
TomXP411 wrote:Finally, there's not enough room for a large graphics card in this enclosure - so users folks want to use this to turn their Altair 8800 into a high end gaming PC. Since my intent was to use this as my daily driver, I was actually a little disappointed on that score. But that's hardly Steve's fault - the chassis was about 45 years before the GTX 2080 Super came out!
Whew, you just made my day. I had originally installed a GTX 780 that I had laying around to get it running. It was tight, especially when putting the lid on the machine -- I had to fold the PCI power cabling 90 degrees to get the lid on.
When I was shopping for a more modern replacement, I passed on the 2080 series (I don't really need ray tracing yet), and went with a Radeon 5700 XT (blower-style) that suits my needs just fine. It was tight, but it did fit with the power cables bent 90 degrees. Glad I didn't drop the pennies on the bigger card!
TomXP411 wrote:Finally - there's a cool program out there called TCPSER. With that, I can use the PC as a terminal server, allowing me to connect to this computer from the LAN and remote-control the Altair from anywhere in the world. Of course, I could just use Remote Desktop, but where's the fun in that??
I like the cut of your jib. RDP wouldn't be any fun at all.
I'm glad it seems to be working out for you good sir. And thanks for the feedbacks! If there's anything that you'd change dimension-wise of the plate, I'd love to hear it.