Building a Home Computer

WHY?????!!!

I would start with a motherboard.. or do you really mean from scratch?

My first computer used a Z80 and some memory and I/O chips... depends what you want to do with this computer you're planing on building...

If its to run Windows or any modern software then forget it... The pc traces would have to be designed with an excellent knowledge of transmission line theory and practice as well as DRAM timings and ooowwwww *shudder*... Just don't unless its something simple using a Z80 or 8085 cpu with a bit of RAM, EPROM and I/O stuff...

John.

I'm assuming you do not mean from scratch as in each and every resistor and microchip, but rather basic components. If that is the case, you have to choose components that work together. I always start with the CPU. Pick a flavor and speed, depending on what you want to spend, and then look for motherboards for that CPU socket type. Most mother boards have LAN, modem, and sound onboard. After that you'll need a hard drive, optical drive (CD or DVD, reader or burner), and a video card if not built into the motherboard. Make sure your video card choice matches your motherboard specs, some are AGP, AGP Pro, PCI Express, and so on. You may want a floppy drive, I hardly ever include them anymore, but some people like them. Once you've got all those parts picked out, you'll need an ATX case to put them in. Make sure it includes a power supply. If not, order one. Once you have it assembled, and it will POST, you'll need an operating system. There are many great flavors of Linux that are free, Ubuntu is one of the preferred, or there is always Windows XP. I order all my supplies from www.newegg.com. They have fast shipping and competitive prices. Hope that helps

Hmmmmm I suppose these days that is what would be called a homemade computer...

A computer these days is easy to make, you just buy the bits and plug them together, no problem...

I thought you meant you wanted to build one from scratch, engineers of my generation would think of that as starting with some chips and an idea...

John.

I have a special purpose 'computer' for displaying weather satellite pictures that I built in 1980 from about 100 chips wired together with wirerap wire wire, It is still in use and I did the last major mod on it last year.

I dont think I could start again today, I smile rather when people push a few boards into a motherboard a say they have built a computer.

Syhprum, so do I.... trouble is my smile soon fades when others look on admiringly and then call him an 'engineer'...

John.

Too bad the MITS computer KIT of the '70's is not available as it was the beginning of the migration from other hobbies to personal computers and getting in on the ground floor of the whole PC thing.

Regardless of what you mean by scratch, the first step is to define as specifically as possible what exactly you want it to do (or want to do with it).

Good Luck!

James

I bought a book probably 30 years ago and carried from place to place up untill two years ago. I am a terrible collector and about once a decade wife makes me trim things down so the book had to go. Darned if I can remember the title, but basically it started you off with an 8088 chip, a 12 volt power supply and an experimenter's circuit breadboard. The chip was about $12 dollars so you weren't in the poor house if you smoked it somehow. The book took you through all the way until you had this huge spagetti plate of colored wires, a working 8088 computer, and a good bit of knowledge. The 8088, while not very marvelous by today's standards, was not a toy. You could do serious stuff with it. I've still got an 8088 in a ziploc bag--wish I still had the book.

To go more "scratch" than that, you probably need to go to relays and vacuum tubes--still not a bad way to get a feel for what the pioneers actually accomplished. I'm going to leave and do a search and see if I can come up with that title for you.

Lonnie

I think the book referred to may have been "The 8088 Project Book" by Robert Grossblatt, (c) 1989, ISBN 0830602712. Awesome book -- oodles 'o fun. Can't wait for his followup, "The Intel Core 2 Duo Project Book...for Dummies". <grin>.

Scott

Couldn't find it but a Google search for "build computer 8088" will bring you lots of good info.

Luck, Lonnie

I built my first "digital" computer in ~1968? It was a gift from my aunt and it was basically a binary adder/counter made from plastic mechanical flip-flops that toggled when you moved a slide back and forth (as best as I can recall anyway). My first "from scratch" computer was one I built that used a Rockwell 6502. All the circuit boards were from original designs and the artwork was hand taped. It had a video circuit based on Don Lancaster's book and loaded an editor and assembler from a cassette tape recorder. Soon it was upgraded to use a 5 1/4" single sided single density floppy disk with about 360K of storage, wow. A number of projects were developed on that machine. The one thing I really miss is when you turned it on, it was ready. When you wanted to turn it off, you just flipped off the switch. None of this asking the operating system permission and waiting and waiting and then finally after you are certain that Windows is hung up again just giving up and using the switch. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade then for now, but it was what we had and we did quite a lot with it.

I'd suggest starting with an analog design. Organics would be interesting, as well, particularly as it is a field where you could do some original work. My favorite, however, are mechanical computers, like the bomb sights used in WWII. In each case, you'll need to do a bit of reading before you begin.

If you simply want to run Linux or Windows, then building from scratch will be quite a chore, as it is difficult to do your own chip fab these days.

If you are only planning to gather major pieces, such as a motherboard, processor chip, power supply, drives, etc. then you might better buy an assembled computer from Dell, (etc.) and take it apart and reassemble it, for the educational value (which I'd have to say, is pretty minimal). You'd then have a well-integrated, fully-warranted machine at about the same cost as piecing it together. Often, the mechanics of factory-assembled machines are superior to those of a pieced-together one (the holes line up better, etc.) and they are more likely to have nice touches such as card readers and USB ports on the front panel.

Ken! my first computer was an analogue one.... three op amps, well they were discrete op amps... hundreds of patch sockets and wires, variable resistors and a votage 'reference' plus an integrator using reed relays and a 'precision' nulling pot to measure the voltage to an incredible accuracy of better than 1%!!!

It was great fun, and hugely educational... simulating quadratic functions etc...

Terrible accuracy, when the 741 op amps came out they were ten times better than my discrete op-amps....

In fact don't tell anyone but I've still got it hidden in a cupboard somewhere.... That was about 1968 or 69 when I built that...

John.

I've written a rough guide about it. You might be interested to have a read-through.
http://www.mouse-studio.com/?level1=portfolio&level2=Guides#DIY

As most of the others suggested, two choices. Buy the major components from PC shop and assemble or build a calculator type machine from piece parts. If the first option is done, why not get into extreme overclocking.

Exceeding tolerances through some intricate water colling system should be fun.

Or why not bulid a behemoth main frame, artificial intelligence, slow processor speeds but billions of cores.

However, asking the question implies limitless posibilities. There are only 10 types of people that understand binary...........

try gearxs.com for your parts! They are very competive on pricing!

If you are planning to "Assemble" a PC from standard available equipment. Do a search for the term barebone PC.

A barebobe is a case motherboard & power supply sold together. Sites that sell barebones usually will recommend compatible CPU's, Ram, & Video cards, Hard drives, Fans etc.. Tiger direct is one that comes off the top of my head but there are many.

Assebling you own PC is a highly educational experience.

If you are planning to do this so you may learn from it, best of luck.

If you are hoping to save a few bucks, those days are over, buy a Dell.

In the UK I can reccomend 'Novatech'

WWW.novatech.com

I live 50 foot away from Novatech. They suck.

Try www.overclockers.co.uk

I am betting that there is not a human on earth who can build a modern PC from scratch. Who'd recognize the raw materials, turn them into copper, silicon, gold, plastic, build the proper epitaxis/manufacturing hardware, and then end up with a PC?

I laugh when people say that humans are smarter today than in the time of Socrates. We all start with what our predecessors gave us, and think no more about how easy it'd be for politicians to throw us all back into the Dark Ages.

Have y'all ever seen the breathtakingly complex, astoundingly ingenious robots of the 1700's that could play piano and sew?

I'd say that making a mechanical mannequin that could assemble a motherboard would be a real project. Even better would be the garage hot-rodder who shoots something into orbit...

Oh come on it would be simple Andy....

Let's see first I'd need a bucket of sand and a nice hot furnace, then a sprinkling of arsenic... There that should get the transistors for the CPU made....

Then just a load of copper ore for interconnects etc...

OK, well, maybe one person on the planet then.

I've done it when I worked at Intel. Here is a good source of information.

http://www.tomshardware.com/

Andy and Electro

I remember in one of the old ARRL books the true story of a ham in Eastern Europe who managed to build a one tube radio transmitter from scratch. The tube was of course the hard part. There was a light bulb factory nearby and he was able to scrounge quality glass without having to melt sand and he also was able to salvage tungsten filaments for his cathode. he did have to build his own vacuum pump and I have no idea what he used as a "getter" substance--but he successfully got it on the air under less than optimal conditions--war time and etc. I find that kind of endeavor extremely interesting. Not very practical now days but extremely interesting.

Lonnie

Let us all hope that it doesn't become practical to build such things from scratch!

Once you've found a decent tutorial on building a machine, the best place to get parts is newegg.

They have everything you could possibly want.

In general, here's the stuff you need to buy:

Case

Power Supply

Motherboard

Processor(s)

Video Card

Memory

Hard Drive

CD/DVD Drive

Thermal Paste

Most mobos have built-in networking and sound. Many have video, but it is often crappy. Sound and networking cards are optional.

Most drive kits have all the cables you need to install.

if you're jusy looking for parts another place to try is www.tigerdirect.com

It is funny; I passed good time enjoying the all comments. I will e-mail this forum comments to Charles Chaplin or to our day best commedian, to Dr. Bean let see him if he send to hollywood.