Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
I came across a project on hackaday.io called "Recreating the Jupiter Ace" and I decided to try to reproduce this myself. I downloaded the author's Kicad files, had the board fabbed up by jlcpcb, and built myself a 2024 Jupiter Ace! I ran into a couple problems, which I diagnose and resolve in the video. Then I designed three modules for it: 1) RAM expansion, 2) Raspberry Pi Supervisor, and 3) Speech Synthesizer. The Jupiter Ace is a cool vintage/retro computer because it is one of the very few computers that came with the FORTH language instead of BASIC in ROM. Not many people knew FORTH at the time, so this may have led to some of the marketing issues with the Jupiter Ace. Nevertheless, it is quite a capable computer for its size, and I even play a couple games -- Tut Tut by George Beckett and Moon Buggy by John Kennedy. For more vintage computer projects, see smbaker.com/.
Resources:
* Scott's Website: smbaker.com
* Hackaday.io page on Recreating the Jupiter Ace: hackaday.io/project/165772-recreating-the-jupiter-ace
* Tut Tut by George Beckett: zx81keyboardadventure.com/2020/05/tut-tut-on-jupiter-ace-part-1.html
* Moon Buggy and other Games, by John Kennedy: github.com/GrantMeStrength/retro/blob/gh-pages/Ace/index.md
* Jupiter Ace Archive site: jupiter-ace.co.uk
I came across a project on hackaday.io called "Recreating the Jupiter Ace" and I decided to try to reproduce this myself. I downloaded the author's Kicad files, had the board fabbed up by jlcpcb, and built myself a 2024 Jupiter Ace! I ran into a couple problems, which I diagnose and resolve in the video. Then I designed three modules for it: 1) RAM expansion, 2) Raspberry Pi Supervisor, and 3) Speech Synthesizer. The Jupiter Ace is a cool vintage/retro computer because it is one of the very few computers that came with the FORTH language instead of BASIC in ROM. Not many people knew FORTH at the time, so this may have led to some of the marketing issues with the Jupiter Ace. Nevertheless, it is quite a capable computer for its size, and I even play a couple games -- Tut Tut by George Beckett and Moon Buggy by John Kennedy. For more vintage computer projects, see smbaker.com/.
Resources:
* Scott's Website: smbaker.com
* Hackaday.io page on Recreating the Jupiter Ace: hackaday.io/project/165772-recreating-the-jupiter-ace
* Tut Tut by George Beckett: zx81keyboardadventure.com/2020/05/tut-tut-on-jupiter-ace-part-1.html
* Moon Buggy and other Games, by John Kennedy: github.com/GrantMeStrength/retro/blob/gh-pages/Ace/index.md
* Jupiter Ace Archive site: jupiter-ace.co.uk
