Review Details

MiniPET 40/80 - Standalone Computer KIT

Product Review (submitted on 21 February 2022):

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.