I completed the Apple I replica (Replica I). I had a couple of false starts, and ended up redoing a few low solder joints, but all in all the assembly went pretty smoothly. All told, I probably spent 3 hours on the assembly, and didn’t really run into any real problems. Tom Owad’s book “Apple I Replica Creation” came in handy, in spite of the review on Slashdot.
A few of quick insights:
- Boot times on a device with no disks rock!
- I don’t remember much BASIC
- BASIC is kinda fun
- No line editor == not as much fun
- I should have added the serial interface board
That last one is a killer, I can’t store anything I write (or load existing software) without the interface.