Retro Tech
The simple VGA panel breakout board I designed a while back has been OSHWA certified. I wanted to use this project as an exercise to walk through using the CERN OHL 2.0 license and obtaining OSHWA certification since it was such a simple board. The process was relatively simple and straightforward, though if I am in a rush on a project I will definitely miss some steps. I will need to make a quick reference guide or template for future projects so that this will be seamless in the future.
I have started development on some new offerings for my Tindie store, thanks to community suggestions. Probably still a few weeks out at least but keep an eye on my store! Until then I still have many headphone adapters for Extron devices, so get those while they last!
I’ve done my best to remove a bunch of old pages and information that is no longer up-to-date. I am no longer taking mod/repair commissions or selling PCBS (aside from the stock remaining on my tindie store) and I don’t have any active projects in development.
Due to some family health over the past year I have had less and less time to work on mods and projects. This has led to a dissonance between my desire to work on projects conflicting with where I was needed physically. I am taking a few big steps back from perpetually pending projects in an effort to be more present in other areas and to other people in my life. I’ve sold a lot of things I wouldn’t have been able to put to use anytime soon and its been liberating really. I used to get bummed out thinking about retro gaming since it represented something I couldn’t be involved in anymore as much as I wanted to be. I’d even stopped watching the roundup!
I am, however, already feeling better. I feel like I can get connected with the community again without wanting to be doing anything. I would like to get more involved again at a later date, and come back to some of my PCB projects. Until then, I’m content to just sit back and watch.
I haven’t updated this space in a while but I’ve been posting updates on Twitter @tinkerplunk for more regular updates. All MiSTer orders were shipped at the end of May, thank you everyone for your patience in getting through the backlog. Currently I’m spending my time developing new boards and adapters. I’ve got a new shop set up on tindie where you can find the headphone jack versions of the extron audio adapters designed by dbelectronics. I’m working on adding more stuff in the future. Thanks for everyone’s support!
Hello, thanks everyone for your patience. At the beginning of December I thought I would have time to get some things squared away, but I ended up having less free time than ever. With the holiday season coming to a close, things should be returning to normal soon.
This week I’m making a concentrated effort to make my workspace less of a fire hazard (lots to clean up) and take care of all of the odds and ends I have pending, then starting next week return to regular production of about 12 orders per week.
I apologize for the long delay; fortunately several other sellers have begun producing boards; I can personally vouch for porkchop express (http://www.misteraddons.com) and zerohimself (https://www.etsy.com/shop/zerohimself) for add-ons, and HugoCraft (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HugoCraft) for 3d printed fan plates.
I have enough parts to make a couple dozen extra IO and RAM boards once all open orders are completed, and after that I have no plans to make more MiSTer boards or take more pre-orders. I’m hoping to spend my free time learning, chiefly electronics basics, 3d modeling and printing, and refining my PCB design technique, as well as doing console mods/repairs.
Again, I appreciate everyone’s patience, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Jacob
I have 7 more kits available here. Work is progressing well with open orders and I’m keeping up with my ETAs. This is the last of the IO kits for now; the rest of the parts I will save to complete orders and then sell the rest assembled. I will have 10 more SDRAM kits sometime later this week.
I included QR codes on the package inserts, but if those aren’t working for you, here are the links:
I have 8 XS SDRAM kits available. These include the PCB, RAM, capacitors, and pin headers needed to make your own.
Order here, $14.
I also have some nice Kester 959T no-clean flux available here. US shipping only.
Install instruction are here. Be advised that this is pretty fine pitch soldering so experience is required. I also recommend placing the board into the DE10-nano before soldering on the 3 pin P2 connector to get correct placement.
I have 8 complete kits for the I/O board available here. These include all parts needed to build your own IO board, for $18. I will be posting a guide shortly to help out with some of the trickier bits. If you’ve assembled PCBs before this should be easy enough, but if you don’t have much soldering experience I suggest finding a modder to assemble this for you (I can ship direct to them if you put in their address, talk to them first) or look for a pre-assembled board from another seller.
RAM kits coming soon!
I’m still hard at work producing boards for current orders. I am getting occasional emails about future orders and I’m sorry for not responding to all of them. I’ll try to lay out my plans as best as I see them.
I have ordered extra parts so I will try to build these boards out and sell them rather than doing another preorder. I will also use these parts to sell kits. Assembling kits is not nearly as time consuming as assembling the boards, but these kits will be for advanced users and recommended assemblers only. It takes way too long to label everything so I’m relying on the markings on the resistors and differences in quantity and packaging for you to be able to tell the capacitors apart.
René Richards of db-electronics.ca is working on having some vertical RAM boards professionally manufactured, and there is someone in Mexico working on a run of 50 (not sure what configuration). The sellers thread lists other sellers, so look there if you need a board.
The landscape of these add-on boards will probably change a lot in the coming months, so I probably won’t be taking any more large scale orders until we see if a redesign comes. If there is still demand I may do small pre-orders of 10-20. However, it looks like RAM will become increasingly available, and I encourage everyone to check out Smokemonster’s video on the topic of using the MiSTer without the IO board.
Thank you everyone for your patience. I’m working hard on optimizing the build process to get these out faster. Orders #1004 -1010 should expect to be sent out next week. With the year coming to a close I am not finding as much time to build these as I’d like, but I’m trying my best. I expect to finish all orders before then end of the year as I have some time off of work in December.
Orders #1011-1025 ETA 2-3 weeks
Orders #1026-1050 ETA 3-4 weeks (end of November)
Orders #1051-1075 ETA 4-5 weeks
Orders #1076-all end of year
Thanks!
Tinkerplunk 