Gigatron is a TTL microcomputer that you build yourself.

 

How it works

We have given in-depth talks at several hacker spaces. Here is one Walter did at Hackerhotel 2018 explaining both concept choices and design details.

Duration: 52m22s

For a PDF version of the slides and for more materials, check out the Tutorials section.

About us

Gigatron is a project by Marcel van Kervinck and Walter Belgers.

On May 25, 2020, Marcel passed away due to an illness. I, Walter, remember Marcel as a great engineer, eager to fully understand the technologies at deepest level. He was also the software guy in the team, having written all the initial software for the Gigatron and Pluggy McPlugface. When using PS/2 libraries for the pluggy, he found bugs unknown until then, which shows his tenacity to fully understand things and make them work as well as possible. We both believed in the beauty of making something as elegant as possible. We created the Gigatron to be a kit to be proud of. And we were. People who have met Marcel at various occassions will surely remember his optimism and the joy he got from talking to similar minded people. I will miss Marcel.

In this talk recorded at VCF Berlin 2019, Marcel discusses the background of this project: from the earliest breadboard experiments to the version that can run Micro-Soft BASIC.

Duration: 40m

For general questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail. We are also on Twitter, Hackaday and GitHub, all links are listed below under “Find us”. Note that messages sent to Marcel on Hackaday or GitHub will not be read.