Building a model of the Sol Prototype in Box - Raising the Digital Dead Ep. 3
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2022
- #retro #computer #technology Kicking off the project to create a replica of the Sol Intelligent Terminal, prototype of the Sol-20 Terminal Computer by Processor Technology, I put together a new cardboard model based on info I've deduced from photographs. Will it turn out okay?
● Background music licenced from:
www.epidemicsound.com - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This video was kind of a trial run of making a 'process' video. I'm still kind of learning how to edit these so please bear with me. I had about 8 hours of raw footage that I had to get down to 20 something minutes. It's tricky deciding how to cut that. Also note: we have abandoned the TH-cam Audio Library. One of the reasons you usually hear smooth jazz on this channel isn't because I love jazz particularly, it's because everything else on the YAL is loud, in your face techno that doesn't work well as chill background music. Epidemic Sound kept appearing on my Facebook feed so I figured I'd try it. Cheers!
Jazz is great because it is not distracting!
If you want to make a rolled shape for the front, you can bend some thin aluminum, then fiberglass and resin over it. You can remove the fiberglass from the metal after it dries and you have a general shape, then you can add more fiberglass, to give it strength and shape it with rough sandpaper, moving up to finer grades. Wetsanding is easier, produces better quicker results. Fill in light dips and pinholes with bondo when it's very close to finished. Bondo is gummier, makin it more difficult to sand. Thoroughly clean soap and water, then alcohol, then primer, sand the primer to a 400-600 grit quick wetsand, clean and dry again, paint, wetsand clean polish. Automotive paint aisle for everything and you can make a very nice custom piece.
Sand by feel. If you can feel it, you'll see it after everything. I fixed broken ground effects on my car this way, with a very large curved piece missing. Turned out great.
Brad, when will we see something new about this project?
@mountainkingelectronics Hopefully not too much longer. I have been trying to learn KiCAD because in addition to making a board via toner transfer method I also want to attempt to have a few boards produced for patrons/viewers. Trying to get two versions.. one that strictly follows the original design, the other with s third layer that connects all the broken traces. Taking a long time to learn though. Haven't been able to master tracing curved, hand laid traces accurately in the software.
For bending the acrylic, you should try making a bending machine from some nichrome wire that can be bought online or salvaged from things like toasters and hair dryers. This heats a small strip of the plastic by having it rest on a channel with the heating element. this makes the heat application very precise. You may be able to use something to mask off some areas and use a heat gun, this could also work. Making some wooden outlines that you could wrap the softened plastic around could help the bend stay even while it cools. You should practise the heating with some scraps of the acrylic that will not be used to get a feel for it before going for the main piece. Hope this helps!
The CHM is a wonderful place and they were very generous to provide the pictures, but whenever I look at the photos I just think that whoever took them has never built anything. Also, I want to send them a set of digital calipers! 🤣 This series is great even if it is a bit quixotic
I work in CAD and modelling most of the time, but if I'm honest I spend a *lot* of time making things out of card, or using Illustrator to make profiles of things, printing them at full scale then cutting them out, seeing how things feel in relation to one another in the real world.
I'm sure others have pointed out, but when you're making curves from corrugated card you can often remove one face of it, then usually it will bend fine along one axis. Alternatively using your knife and a ruler you can cut a bunch of parallel lines on the exterior surface and that will let you make those curves. I'm not criticising your technique, just pointing your fingers in some different directions. There's no right or wrong way of doing it.
Another thing I'd *highly* recommend is starting with your side panels because those dimensions and shapes are pretty much known. So printing them out 1:1 then using them as a guide for card would probably get you a good chunk of the way.
As for the acrylic, I would recommend seeing if there are local sign makers / acrylic cutters and seeing what they have in their offcut bins, you might be able to find some bits for very little /free that will let you experiment with. Possibly try PETG as an easy option for heating.
Also - shaping the pieces, a wooden jig for the flat sections and a heat gun and some gloves for your hands will help. A good jig for the plastic to shape over will such much frustration. I'm speaking from experience.
Good luck! :D
This looks super great as a first prototype! I definitely can't fault you for getting a little carried away with the woodgrain sides - if the primary purpose of this is to be a visual motivator for you, then I can see that extra work paying off. I'm excited for you and rooting for you to continue working on this project for your satisfaction.
As I watch this I could not help thinking that dollar tree foam board would be easier to work with. Cheap and cuts good with a sharp knife. Fun project. Thanks
I think in some ways it might have been easier yeah. I was concerned about structural strength and what it would cost as I made many mistakes and had to regroup a few times. I will keep it in mind for my next outing.
@@TechTimeTraveller well as for cost around here (NV) it is $1.25 a sheet. I have been seeing lots of RC aircraft made from it. Good luck on the project!
@@TechTimeTraveller You could just wait until after an election, when people are dumping their political signs. They're often made of coroplast, and unless people plan to paint over them and make new signs, most don't try to recycle them.
I think this is an impressive model - it actually looks great. I agree and understand why you wanted to make the case first now. :)
Looking forwards to the electronics stuff, and hoping you'll be able to source the parts you need without too much trouble. This is going to be exciting!
All the best to you and yours, hope you will all have a happy thanksgiving.
Awesome work and video! I'm like you,I prefer physical model when prototyping. Thanks for sharing
So some useful advice for working with cardboard, make sure the corrugations are running parallel to the bends, and it will take bends/curves much more readily. Looks like you're trying to fight the corrugations in the video.
I hear you about the motivation part! It's a critical factor, and it's good to focus on that a bit.
Useful piece of software for this sort of reverse engineering from pictures is ImageJ (or Fiji). Looks like you’ve probably got this one all sorted out, but it’s a good tool to be aware of. Great video, really enjoy your stuff.
I am so glad you are doing this project. As a high schooler I had a subscription to Radio Electronics and I remember this project and many others in the magazine. I so much wanted to dive in and make them but finances in my family did not allow for it. So I look forward with great anticipation to your next video and the many to come. I am inspired and perhaps will take up a quest to build a couple of them too.
Hey, for just being made out of cardboard, that looks pretty cool! I like your painting work - it really does look like wood!
An old engineer I used to know, taught a class called "Paper Dolls for Engineers" where he advocated building physical models of parts and products out of cardboard and paper. Such modest materials are cheap and accessible to everyone and so easy to work with. Computer models and drawings are great but we think just as much with our hands as our eyes. Being able to hold something and play with it in the real world can teach you things you can't learn any other way.
This is the perfect application for a cardboard mockup. We can see how easy it is to modify and the immediate understanding that comes from a physical model. It's been many years but I still often reach for the cardboard and scissors when I have a fitment or layout problem to solve.
@Tech_Time_Traveller I love the pacing of your videos. I prefer long form videos like these but they're not easy to produce in a way that is captivating. Your humor breaks it up nicely and keeps the mood light while you deal with technical material. I love the videos where you try to revive old homebrew computers the most because you show a caring and reverence the builder must have shared when they crafted such a beautifully intricate machine. Please keep making such wonderful videos!
Thank you! Yes I think doing this kind of helps burn some pathways in your brain and sort of gives you an assist as you go for the final model. I have a lot of trouble visualizing things digitally. It's like when I go to buy something off ebay and I can see other things in the photo for scale but it almost always is much different than what I pictured!
Plus cardboard is available so why not? 😀
i've had success making mock ups like this by first making a 3d model, then printing it flat, taping it to card stock, and scoring the stock with an xacto knife before folding/taping.
even if you don't want to make a 3d model, scoring card stock with a ruler and xacto knife make the folding process a breeze. helps if you measure out everything with pencil and ruler first before you start scoring.
looking forward to more videos soon.
Ooh.. thats an interesting idea. I'll have to try that.
Wonderful stuff!
Thanks for the mention! Hope the extracted measurements help in some way. I generated some more but I am not certain they are close as my plexiglas width came out to 23.14" which
just seems too wide. You're doing a great job, so keep going with that!
However off that I got: a) 2.59" plex left edge to keyboard cutout left side. b) 12.77" keyboard cutout width. c) 6.44" cassette cutout width (from right plex edge). d) 3.25" cassette
cutout height. e) 1.32" width gap between right keyboard edge to cassette cutout edge. f) 3.32" keyboard cutout height. g) 0.53" height offset from bottom (front) cassette horizontal edge
to bottom of keyboard width edge. Have an annotated image if required, but really, best to get CHM to ditch the ruler and instead put a round coin of known size directly on all the surfaces to be measured in any future photos.
Thank you for helping. I regret the math goes over my head but I get the gist of what you're doing, and I think your results came out pretty bang on against my efforts in cardboard. Really appreciate these insights!
@@TechTimeTraveller There's no complex math in it at all. It's nothing more than overdrawing the images with lines and having the CAD software tell me the line segment lengths in pixels.
At least one line's pixel count must be a known actual length.
Then other line segments on the image are a ratio of that pixel count times the real measurement. The closer to being 'square on' to the camera, the better the results.
So it's just ratios. I temporarily note them as numerator and denominator on a scrap of paper before putting them into the Windows calculator.
As for the plex, search '2mm smoked polycarbonate' and there are numerous suppliers worldwide. Ebay also has this (and acylic) but from what I've seen the offerings are usually smaller pre-cut pieces than a specialist supplier can provide.
I'd make a bending jig using curved former ribs from thin ply, bend a thin sheet over them and glue, and use a heat gun on the plex. Other suggestions using a nichrome wire are great for sharp folds but aren't going to heat over a wider area IMO.
Really loving the process videos to be honest.
It's been interesting following your build, I hope it continues to go well and you get a lot of satisfaction out of the result.
Just a small thought among no doubt many better ones - When you come to cutting / bending the wood, metal, and acrylic for your 'final' design do give some thought as to what the original designers might have had on hand. Chances are every cut, angle, and radius was dictated at least much by that as what they intended. It may be you'll have a few "of course" moments that may lead you to a surprisingly accurate recreation.
very nice!
Me: dad, send some photos of the thing.
Dad: sends photos from obscure odd angles and two photos of his feet and an accidental selfie.
Looking good fella. Can't wait to see the Sol shining. This is how Clive Sinclair hand built every ZX81 😊
It looks great, esp the wood grain. :)
even if i were to use cad tools to design something like this I would still want to build a mock-up.
there will be things that one does better the second time - and seeing a second version gives you that feeling of accomplishment that is crucial to motivate this sort of project
the wood colour was a nice touch tho lol
A couple of youtubers appear to have gotten hold of original units!:
'Action Retro' and 'Intergalactic Museum of Computing & Tech. History'.
First hurray. Good timing as I needed cheering up
CAD - Cardboard Aided Design
Bending acrylic...
You can put it in your oven at about 150⁰C (not sure in f) and, when it's hot and a little floppy, use a smooth sanded wooden form to bend around.
Be careful with your clamps, they will leave dimples so use something flat and smooth to spread the clamping force.
Ideally make a top and bottom clamp or an inner and an outer form to clamp between.
Trying to do it with a heat gun or other small heat source could lead to frustration and possibly insanity.
I have made some simple acrylic stuff this way. I didn't sand my forms and ended up with feint wood grain in my parts.
I'm sure there are other ways but this is simple and at least relatively safe.
Best wishes!
You are doing in it in CAD, Cardboard Aided Design .
No shame there, headliners are a whole specialty.
My eye spy a MicroBee in the shelf. Are you going to make a video on that awesome computer soon? I had one as a kid
That looks absolutely fantastic, would it be too expensive to make some parts out of styrene sheet? Not that it matters now that you have it done.
Thanks!! I use styrene in model railroading and considered it. But it has gotten rather costly.. not that it was ever cheap. For something this large it would have cost a few bucks and then of course I had to make multiple changes. IIRC 5 sheets 12x12 of streyene is something like $30. Or was when I last bought it.
Did you know that the Australian DGZ80 / DG640 S100 cards and microbee computer were based on the SOL20? They both have Target and Trek working on then.
I know there are some 3d printers out there, help this guy out!!! Lol Id do it but still learning, if anything, get me the stls and I'll print them up, wood grain and all !
Spray a bit of water on the cardboard to make it more agreeable to being bent. Shape it around your source of roundness and fix / hold in place and let it dry. Hot air would help.
I thought of water afterwards..yeah that would have helped. I might try that again just to dial in the lid a bit more. Many thanks for that tip!
For your next attempt/project try dollar tree foam board. A TH-cam channel called Flitetest uses it to make RC planes and has several techniques to make boxes and curving the board by removing the paper on one side. It also cuts easily and accurately with a cheap razor blade.
nowadays you can make a case in autoCAD or something, and just print it out
For best results, put your CCP Spyware Tablet™ in a Winnie the Pooh case. 😊 ... Great video, thanks for documenting the project in such detail.
for bending acrylics you may want to use 12v power suply (pc power suply would be great ) and resistive wire of more that 2 ohms per your lenght of bending
you place the wire on 2 nails and level 2 boards on the sides so the wire is just below, you heat it up to glowing dull red place acrylic on top and wait , then just bend it like a hinge by hand, rounded part is a bit more tricky because it may require more than one bend
I actually watched a video on doing it and it's exactly what you described. The guy built a plate, and ran a wire with spring at each end, and used a bench supply to heat it. It seems straightforward enough but you really gotta line things up right and be real careful.
@@TechTimeTraveller not really surprising it looked similar , my bent transparent famicom case worked out as well and later i used the same contraption to cut styrophoam to slices to insolaty my garage floor :P
i tryed with headgun but being inpatient i only mede a bubbly mess because i heated it too fast and too much, the key is to work slowly and not overheat it, plus it helps if your plexi is dry, because similarly like 3d printing filememnts plastic can retain some water that can surprise you later with nasty bubble so uoy may want to put a panel of plexu to bend in heated box for the night before at 50 degree c if you going to bend it during winter
Dude, a few thoughts about the going about with the Plexi/Acrylic: Use Your baking oven for the even and controllable heat for bending.
Have a big doobie and let the measurements the other dude made sink in, wrap Your head around- You´ll be fine.
I´m not good at math either, I´m even worse at reading electronics schematics and most of the times I understand barely enough to make it happen and not going electroboom- I´m baffled how much stupid pays out in his case...
But You´ve got a real nice thing goin here, I even like that 80´s music. Don´t worry about Your editing- I like it.
Hey two of those drives aren't IDE... Seagate ST-251-1 and a SyQyest SQ306RD / SQ312RD? Those are both ST-506/ST-412 drives!
it would have been cleanet and faster using thin balsa wood to make a case
LOL...if you rotate the cardboard 90 degrees, it will roll just fine. You were trying to roll a bunch of sticks :)
Sometimes you get a little too engrossed in something to see the obvious. I think on that piece the issue was the width was only available in one direction.. or something.
I would be getting qoutes for someone to make the acrylic piece.
Yeah. I've looked at a few videos of people doing it themselves.. you basically make a heating element out of wire. But it looks very finicky.
The sides look to be 5/8ths not 5/4
What's your car? '57-'58 Ford?
cardboard. brother, you do know you can map all that out through software dont you?
Does the replica prototype work yet? Might be cool to get some working firmware on it that can load/save with the tape desk, and run a simple program to show the hardware working. Then later change to more "Sol Prototype" like firmware (too bad that third original eprom wasn't readable!)
why not just use c-64 as the box
has keyboard and all
man overboard :)
when did you last go to IKEA
just use what you made
what f....
You say "CCP spyware tablet" as if intel chips don't have backdoors built in for the NSA. I think that both are wrong but being one sided about it just leads to xenophobia my man. Great video otherwise!
No xenophobia here. Just humor. ZTE does have a bad rep tho. At work we joke all the time about various devices spying on us. If I had a totally American made tablet I would have made a similar joke.
As the leadership at Homeland Security reassures us, "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear".
@@williamharris8367 I'm sure my name is on a CIA watch list now. They're probably looking up Cardboard Assisted Design and wondering if I'm going low tech to bypass their security, communicating covertly with my handlers overseas. Should be at my door in 5... 4.... 3... 2....
😀
@@TechTimeTraveller I will be subtracting this from your social credit AND credit score
@@TechTimeTraveller Also sorry if I came off harsh. So many tech youtubers refer to stuff as "chinese garbage" and so on not realizing the effect that has on people at large
I don't enjoy this style from you
If you would like that cardboard case to go to good use after you're done, I suggest getting in touch with "Adventures in Retro Computing [ARC] with Javmaster". He's a graphic designer by trade.