Experiments with the world's first microprocessor
and other electronic explorations
As part of a hobby project I'm designing a PCB that will include a Xilinx Zynq-7000 System-on-Chip and a DDR3L SDRAM. Both of these come in ball-grid array (BGA) packages with balls on a 0.8mm grid. This is my first attempt at a PCB using BGAs, but more critically, it's my first attempt with high-speed DRAMs.
I'm fairly confident, but at the same time I'm a little bit intimidated.
I've been doing a lot of work recently with vintage PC disk storage subsystems. I'm hoping to present a talk on this topic at the VCF East event in April 2026. Here's a preview of some of the material I'm planning to present.
As always, comments and questions are encouraged.
Here's what I'm currently working on restoring for the System Source Computer Museum:
This machine's journey started with some friends drinking in a pub in the UK while browsing eBay. They came upon an ad for some computer equipment in a building due for renovation in Nuremberg, Germany, and decided to put in a bid. If this already sounds like a recipe for disaster, well, I'd agree.
I really can't do justice to the effort they put into the recovery. It's best if you read it in their own words here: https://www.ibm360.co.uk/
To make a long story short (and you really should go read their blog), it's on long-term loan to our museum for restoration.
