My MCUs arrived! I am the proud owner of 96K of PROM and an astonishing 16K of RAM. (Spread over two devices.) Advanced technology! The second one was made in 1837, the first in 1926... But that's the week and the year :3 So that'd be August 2018 and June 2019 maybe. Brand new stuffs. I'm honestly surprised why they continue to make these things in this big DIP format. But it could be for high risk jobs where they need to be replaced easily or something. Spot the difference between the two things I got and you win a dust mote. Guess the reason why I got different ones and you get a second mote! (Answer: I was allowed to order up to two lines of one item each. And the very very slim chance that the ROM size on the smaller won't be enough. And maybe I could use the other one for... Science.)

Alright! The components have arrived too! And yes they did send me just nine capacitors by themselves in a separate huge padded envelope. Here's the two gigantic envelopes they sent my components in. The smaller one, as expected, contained nine capacitors with a total weight of possibly 5 grams. The packing slips weighed more than the contents. But what is in this bubblewrapped bundle in the other envelope? So many colourful bags! Just realised that they're colour coded to the contents. Those pins are 2.54mm (0.1 inch) apart. Circuit board stuffs are still measured in thousandths of an inch. Folks must have had really good eyesight back in the sixties. (With all that cigarette smoke??) Special Guest Starring: A spare 3.3V "bulletproof" Micrel MIC2940A 3.3 voltage regulator that I received as a sample when I designed the Ocelot. It's so small I ended up taking pictures of my fingerprints. And yes, ten of these lads came in that big, heavy, triple-walled cardboard box by themselves. And add onto that the spare special high quality capacitors for the MCU... there's ten types of component I ordered, the MCU, the regulator, the tant cap and the solder. No leads or circuit board yet :) Tiny little switch. But it's properly stiff and clicky :D so it's miles better than most Nintendo products!