Building The PiDP8/I

A couple of years ago (2016) I purchased this neat kit called the “PiDP8” from Obsolescence Guaranteed | PiDP-8.

What is this thing?

The PiDP-8/I is a modern replica of the 1968 PDP-8/I computer.

After ordering, I got a box with a bunch of components in it. It was then up to me to get them assembled and get it working!

COMPONENTS THEY PROVIDE
1x Wood enclosure
26× Toggle switches
12× 390 Ohm resistors
27× 4148 Diodes
1× UDN2981A
89× LEDs (5mm, High Brightness)
3× 1K Ohm Resistors
1× 2*20 pin header for mounting the Raspberry Pi

COMPONENTS YOU PROVIDE
1× Raspberry Pi (Plus to 3B or Zero/Zero W) needs 40 pin GPIO connector (I used a 3B+)

I began the build in 2016 and for any number of reasons the project sat dormant until 2018. I finally picked it back up in September of 2018, so I could finish it and get it running!

Back in 2016 I completed the following

Setting up the switches
Soldering the Raspberry Pi header
Soldering ~1/3 of the LEDs

Completed remaining tasks in 2018

Finish soldering all components to PCB
Attach Raspberry Pi
Configure software on Raspberry Pi
Configure remote access so I can access the Raspberry Pi without disassembling the unit.
Assemble components into the enclosure
Turn it on and hope it works! 🤞

On October 8th it was finally ready to boot up and see if it all worked...

...and it did! 😃 🎉

Your browser does not support the video tag.

This project was a lot of fun to put together, and in some way, I am glad I didn’t finish it back in 2015.

Here are some photos as the building and testing progressed.