Customer Reviews 2 item(s)
- Works great, easy to build.
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This is a beautiful looking computer, easily worth of its ancestors. The white PCB looks great on my desk, and it's a great conversation piece.
The machine took me maybe 4 hours to build. I was able to get into a rhythm, and everything went together well. The board is well designed, so it's hard to make any of the more common mistakes, as long as you're paying attention to the bill of materials and the markings on the board.
The key switches used on the keyboard are tactile switches, but a little better than the original PET shown on The 8-Bit Guy. These keys are very usable, if only one finger at a time. While I can't touch type on this, that is only because the keys are a little close together. So I decided to add a third party keyboard from TexElec to round out the build.
So far, the system seems to run about half of the programs I've tried. Games are hit-or-miss, with some not working at all and others breaking because this uses the original Graphical keyboard matrix, which is incompatible with the later "B" series.
However, paired with the SD2PET, this is a fantastic intro to 8-bit computing, and I love this machine. - Great Kit
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This is a beautiful kit. It looks as good in reality as on the pictures. It is well thought out and kitted very well. The components are attached to the anti-static foam the same way as they are on the board. The booklet, which is imitating the ring binder Commodore style manuals, like from the C64, is beautiful and very informative. Actually, there is everything important for assembly explained.
The key caps are a paper print on a plastic body with a transparent cover. It is required to have a sharp knife (scalpel, Exacto knife) and a steel ruler for cutting them. There are four prints, so even if you screw up one or the other label, there are enough replacements.
The required skills are, well, I would say, if yu feel safe soldering through hole assemblies, you can do this as well.
What I would wish to have in future revisions:
1. The DIP-Switch should be accessible without unscrewing the cover plate.
2. own option ROM images should be loadable (i know, that is is not easy).
Other than that, this is a perfect product. I like mine a lot!