Putnam Electronics Web Forum

All,
The tail-end of 2017 was a bit of a whirlwind, but we're back in the lab working on new products!

What is coming soon you ask? Here's what:
1) Active development is underway, and I'm here to tell you officially, that the first expansion card for the PE6502 computer is: The SwinSID Nano Soundcard kit!!

What in the world is a SwinSID Nano you ask? It is a current production, SID replacement. What in the world is a SID you ask? It's the sound chip from the awesome Commodore 64 (MOS 6581/8580 Sound Interface Device to be exact!)
The SwinSID Nano chip is built with all-currently available technology, using a surface-mount microcontroller and a few other components, mounted on a small PCB the size and footprint of a real SID chip. It was made to be a drop-in replacement for the real thing (which is no longer made, and getting harder to get...) I'm sure purists will say it's not 100% like the real thing, but the SwinSID Nano comes VERY close in my opinion. It will plug into our new soundcard kit, which is being designed to work at the same memory address as in a Commodore 64, so all the same POKE commands used in a C64 for interacting with the SID chip will work with the PE6502. Stay tuned for YouTube movies upcoming, showing the prototype!!!

2) I've received permission from Sergey Kiselev, the designer of the "Zeta 2", also known as "Zeta SPC V2", to sell his computer as a complete kit- in the same exact way we sell our own design- our PE6502 computer. So, for close to the same price point (still figuring out final pricing, but it's gonna be close to the price of the PE6502, perhaps slightly more) we'll now offer a single board computer kit that is a Z80 based machine, with a 1.44/3.5" floppy disc controller on-board, in addition to two built-in virtual drives (one ROM-based, one battery-backed RAM-based), and CP/M operating system on-board. We'll support the kit here, as we do our own PE6502, and once I'm done writing the manual (and also assembling the first unit once the boards come in from the board-house, you can expect to see some demo videos on our YouTube channel).

One more thing- the PE6502 is selling very well, and we'll continue to sell it as long as people want to buy it! There are NO plans to retire this model- rather we're going to start working MUCH harder on add-on products for it. The SID soundcard I mentioned above, and also a back-plane. Plus, I see elsewhere in the forum people are asking about a cassette interface; I'll answer that post in more details after this post, but I'll just say- we want a cassette interface too! :0)
Also, I need to reach back out to the designer of the CFFA1 compact flash drive- I suspect that with this added to the PE6502, playing Zork is possible on this computer, and that's a goal of mine!

So, for those who have already bought a PE6502 (and those that just like looking at them too!) thank you for your interest! We're gonna keep good stuff coming!!!
Jason "Corneleous" Putnam
putnamelectronics.com

Hi folks! quick update here!
We're back to working on making awesome products available to you!
1) A good friend of mine, who is very passionate about 3D printing and CAD design, is designing a case/enclosure for the PE6502 computer. I told him I'd like to see a clone of the Apple II case (only smaller), or something with the "Snow White Design Language" of the Apple IIcx/Mac Classic/Mac SE look. He has artistic vision he is excited about, however, so he promised to surprise me! I'll be sure to show you what he comes up with- if you want one, we can make them available for sale through our website.

2) The PE6502 is a great computer- and we've sold a bunch of them. I promise to keep selling them as long as people wish to buy them. Some folks have expressed they thought the PE6502 was too expensive. At $130 USD (shipping included within the USA) I've always thought this was a good deal- and there is not really a high profit margin on these. However, compared to things like a Raspberry Pi Zero (which is not really in the same category!) people think we're a bit high on price. So, with that in mind, I've decided to sell a cost-reduced variant of the PE6502, in parallel with continuing to sell the traditional PE6502 kit, unchanged. The cost-reduced version is currently $20 dollars cheaper, and the only current difference is that the boards are outsourced. They do feature the same exact cad/gerber files (the source code for the board), with a slightly updated silkscreen layer, which removes "Made in USA" from these boards. The date is updated on the board, and the PIA label is updated to show both 6821 or 65C21 will work. That's it! (Oh, and the color of the board is blue, instead of the original board purple color)

3) We are VERY close to releasing the Zeta2 computer to being available for sale. Stay tuned!

4) A new section on our website, entitled "happy customers", was added- so send in your pics of your PE6502 computers, so we can post them for all to see!