Comment by flyinghamster

> I'm not into retro gaming (they are unforgiving and often not very fun) and I can't think of anything else to do with it. I've thought about some basic home automation tasks, but these old machines draw so much power it feels bad.

That's what dissuaded me from ever attempting to resurrect overly-old hardware, although at least a KIM-1 isn't going to be a power hog. On the other hand, something like a PDP-11/70 would suck down a ridiculous amount of juice for much less computing power than a modern microcontroller.

Then there's the whole parts problem. Tracking down boards and components that will never be made again is another nightmare. Emulators make far more sense when you don't want to be your own component-level repair tech.