It doesn't speak to how long he's been working on it. If it's, say, two years, that's $75 a week, $15 a day. $75 is dinner and a movie for two nowadays (and a lot of people go to the movies every week). Yes, it's a lot of money, but ideally in a well planned retirement, with a mortgage paid off, you get a little extra capital to spend on things like this.

I sometimes wished I took up carpentry and cabinet making instead of computers. If I did, and spent what I've spent on computers, I'd have a shop better equipped than Norm Abram, and the tools would still be useful vs the quiet, idle hulks sitting up in my attic.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

A 9 year timespan is already more reasonable. 75$ dinner and a movie for two, it seems prices in the us are higher than over here. For 75$ you can get dinner(regular meal, like spaghetti, or some meat) and movie for four over here.
If you look it that way, then i spent a lot of money on my projects and tools(soldering iron, scope, programmer, ect...) as well , maybe a few thousand dollars in total.

and you can't afford wire-wrap sockets?

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

I get scared when i see a big price on a single bill.
Also when i buy stuff more often, the mom alarm sounds, saying "How much money did you spent on those packets that arrived?", and then i have to say "not much".
Also i must watch at the 28$ limit, everything that exceeds that price customs might be charged, and if they aren't in the mood, they can charge up to 50% of the price.

Very nice equipment there. That kind of accuracy in metal shaping lends itself to press fitting pieces together.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

I bumped into this topic while searching for something else and recalled the discussion about my locomotive project. Here are a few pictures of it with the body installed, although not yet finished or in paint.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

BDD, looks like a real labour of love. It's hard to figure it out from the pics, but what's the scale?

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8 bit fun and games: https://www.aslak.net/

The scale is 1.6 inches to the foot. The unit is about 16 inches wide, 22½ inches from the railhead to the top of the (yet-to-be-mounted) air horns, 6½ feet long and weighs nearly a half ton. The prime mover is a Briggs & Stratton industrial V-twin, developing 16 horsepower.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Here are some more recent picture of my locomotive. Also a link to a video shot during some load testing. Progress has been slowed a lot by my ongoing medical issues.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Very impressive. You led me to have a read of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_lo ... ansmission

It's interesting that European railroads have developed locomotives with hydrodynamic transmissions to the extent that they have, yet such locomotives are practically non-existent in North America—I've never seen one. On the face of it, it would seem hydrodynamic power transmission would be better than electric—no traction motors to overheat and burn out. Also, the control system can be much less complex. Not to be overlooked is the technical skill required to maintain and repair what is basically a scaled-up version of an automobile's automatic transmission is much less than required with a Diesel-electric unit.

However, the operating conditions to which freight (goods) locomotives on Canadian and American railroads are subjected are much more severe than seen in most other parts of the world. Train lengths exceeding 125 cars are common, and train weights often reach 15,000 tons when hauling bulk commodities. It takes an enormous amount of power to haul such a train, especially in the moutain districts.

As an example, an EMD SD70ACe freight locomotive develops 4500 horsepower and 157,000 pounds of continuous tractive effort. I've seen trains with as many as six of these locomotives in use, usually four pulling and two pushing. The forces involved are mind-boggling. While a hydrodynamic transmission could be made that would withstand that level of power, the transmission's output has to be transferred to the trucks (bogeys) and ultimately to the wheelsets. To date, no satisfactory method of doing so has been developed for high-horsepower freight locomotives.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!