Making Poly-88 S-100 computer replica PCB boards #VintageComputing #S100 #History

Evan obtained a plethora of vintage hardware, discovering two Poly-88 S-100 computers in the batch.

The Poly-88 was the first complete computer from PolyMorphic Systems. It was housed in a five-slot S-100 chassis, with additional (optional) side-mounted connectors for the purpose of joining chassis together. This unit earned the nickname “orange toaster” due to its orange metal cover, and the fact that the S-100 cards generated noticeable heat.

The Poly-88 was available in kit form, or assembled. The keyboard and monitor were sold separately, and used a cassette recorder for program storage.

After studying each machine (of course each had a different revision mainboard), he’s decided to recreate them in:

Since I have these machines, I’ve decided to do my best to not just document them but to recreate them in CAD so anyone who wants one can just make it. They’re not that big and with manufacturing these days being so easy I see no reason to pine over an old sheet metal box, just make a new one.

See the details in the blog post here and files in GitHub.


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