Finished assembling my Gigatron this past weekend. Awesome kit! I also built Pluggy McPlugFace.
giga2.jpeg (30 KiB) Viewed 4625 times
Notes:
Pin 1 of the Instruction Decoder was not drilled through correctly on the PCB. I tried to see if I could drill it out manually, but the smallest drill bit I had was 1/32", and it needed 1/64" or smaller. Gave it a few whacks with a hammer and a steel nail, but that didnt work as planned (it bent the material but didn't puncture, and the metal covering the hole started to flake off). Ended up just surface mounting that particular pin on the DIP, after folding it double. Works just fine.
giga1.jpeg (23.87 KiB) Viewed 4625 times
Finally, just like Ben Heck in his video (which I watched after assembling mine), I put all the diodes in at the same time, and soldered them in one go. This resulted in several fused leads and generally a horrible time trying to get it all short-circuit-free. Better to put these in row by row.
Good you could make it work and thanks for sharing the picture!
This hole isn't a via as well, so indeed no need for a wire to the other side. The drill issue is new to us. It's hard to imagine how the PCB maker can skip a random one on a random board. I'll ask them how common it is and just pray we don't see it more often.
