Kenbak-1 Case
The Kenbak-1 is considered by the Computer History Museum, the Computer Museum of America and the American Computer Museum to be the world's first "personal computer", invented by John Blankenbaker.
Knowing the original Kenbak-1 only sold fewer than 50 units, I assumed the case was not custom-designed. After a small amount of Googling, I discovered the case used in the original was the "Grand Prix" enclosure from Bud Industries of Ohio.
Another quick search revealed that Bud Industries still exists! On a lark, I contacted their office and spoke to a very helpful woman named Jenene. She had worked at Bud since the 80s and was familiar with the Grand Prix case, but she told me that enclosure had been discontinued about the time she started.
I asked if they would be able to make a small run of the enclosures. She said they could not, but she would be happy to share the original engineering drawings. I told her about the history of the Kenbak-1 and how an original would sell for more than $30,000. She seemed quite pleased that their product had been used in something so historic.
So I took the 55 year old engineering drawings, cleaned them up, converted the fractional inches to millimeters, and created the design files necessary to upload to PCBWay so other retro-enthusiasts can create their own replica.
Kenbak-1 Case
*PCBWay community is a shared platform and we are not responsible for any design issues.
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