Stephen C Cousins

3,397 orders since Sep 20, 2018

Stowmarket, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Ships from United Kingdom.

View Store

EU countries: Please note Tindie does not collect VAT. You will be charged VAT and a handling fee by your government when the parcel arrives in your country.

Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.97)

Documentation: (4.90)

Shipping: (4.91)

Communication: (4.92)

All Reviews

Mendel | June 2, 2023

A superbly engineered kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

This is the second of the Stephen Cousins RC2014 motherboard kits I've built. A very nice board, though I prefer the SC130 for its compactness and elegance. Quite a number of build options and versatile for its inclusion of switchable boot ROMs.

I do have a couple of minor quibbles. I don't much care for the bent pin headers protruding over the side of the board, though the customer can substitute straight heads (this requires some planning, in order to avoid blocking the female headers at the ports). And, in the otherwise excellent documentation, one of the final tests requires measuring voltage at a couple of pins of the Z180 socket, but with no pin diagram (68 pins to choose from!). Please add a pin diagram / pictorial to the documentation, Stephen.

I would not recommend this kit to the beginning kit builder, as is of medium+ complexity, with many solder joints. Start with something simpler, such as the SC114, to get some experience soldering and kit building. Or, better yet, start with a very simple and cheap kit, say a 555 LED flasher, with only a few solder joints, and practice, practice, practice soldering. Cold solder joints and bridges are the most common cause of kit failure.

Marginal notation: It would be nice to have a plug-in video board, composite video, VGA, or even HDMI. For that matter, why don't I wish for a keyboard interface?

Summary: An excellent kit for anyone into Z80 or CP/M programming at a very reasonable price.

Mleo | May 12, 2023

Easy to build, well documented kit

For SC130 RomWBW CP/M Computer Kit for RCBus-40pin

I've been building kits for over a half century. Started with the venerable Heathkits and continued from there. This has to be the best engineered and documented kit I've ever laid my hands on. Ships in less than two weeks from the UK to the US, thanks to reliable Royal Mail.

Points to watch.
1) Care must be taken in bending the pins of the ICs so they snap into the sockets. Not so easy when you're a senior and your hands are not as steady as they once were.
2) USB ports on some laptops may not supply enough current to power the board reliably. Some Thinkpad models are notorious for this.
3) Be careful to supply 5v and only 5v through the barrel jack. 9v or 12v will damage the ICs and render the board inoperable. I made this mistake and had to replace chips, one by one, in order to restore the board to full function.

Richard | May 5, 2023

Purchased for a Minstrel 4D

For SC129 Digital I/O Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

I bought this as an expansion module for a Minstrel 4D.

Easy to assemble and worked first time.

Usual quick delivery and high quality product for this vendor.

Ricky | April 5, 2023

Great Prototype module!

For SC115 Breakout Module Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

Very easy to assemble. This is very versatile board that allows you to learn a lot about I/O, decoding, and programming.

Fernando | March 6, 2023

Great kit and great service

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

The SC126 is one of the best kits you can get if you want to start playing with a CP/M and a Z80 in general (ok, it's a Z180 and it only makes a lot of things simpler). It has everything you could ask for and then something extra, like the 8 diagnostic LEDs. Stephen did a great job designing it, and his attention also shows in the kit itself. It was neatly packed, the PCB labels are clear and helpfull and the instructions provided in his website are clear and thorough. I am now playing with a Z80 again after 35 years and it feels great.

Braden | Feb. 28, 2023

Nice little kit

For SC510 Prototyping Card Kit for Z50Bus

This kit was well-packaged and complete. Simple board, but just what I needed. No assembly docs for this one, but none are needed since it's so simple. The rest of the docs are all there.

Braden | Feb. 28, 2023

Really nice little backplane. Well thought out.

For SC513 Modular Backplane Kit for Z50Bus

This kit was well-packaged, complete, and the documentation on how to put it together was top notch. Really nice stuff, very impressive.

I was surprised in the end at how small a system can be. It's a cute little backplane that is exactly as functional as it needs to be. The DS1233 power-on reset chip is a nice added touch.

Braden | Feb. 28, 2023

Makes an otherwise complicated assembly easy

For SC504 Compact Flash Interface Kit for Z50Bus

This kit was well-packaged and complete. It includes the CompactFlash holder daughtercard.

It all went together very nicely, although it was a bit of a pain to have to remove the key on the CompactFlash connector. I ended up stabbing my finger with my Xacto knife.

But it's a nice slick little kit that takes the physical complexity out of dealing with the CF module. The address jumpers are nicely placed and offer nice flexiblity. And he makes a lot of nice software available online for getting going with the card.

Be sure and read Steve's notes online about high-speed CF cards.

Braden | Feb. 28, 2023

Just the thing for solderless breadboard prototyping.

For SC512 Prototyping Breakout Card Kit for Z50Bus

This kit was well-packaged, complete, and the documentation on how to put it together was top notch. Really nice stuff, very impressive.

This is a well-thought-out card that makes it easy to prototype other modules on a breadboard, without having to worry about the interface logic. You can just use Dupont wires to jumper from this card to your breadboard.

Braden | Feb. 28, 2023

Great kit, excellent seller communication

For SC517 Modular Backplane Kit RC2014 to Z50Bus

This kit was well-packaged, complete, and the documentation on how to put it together was top notch. Really nice stuff, very impressive.

Graham | Feb. 5, 2023

Excellent kit with great instructions

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Total quality kit, super-well organised, and very clear. Stephen has obviously spent a great deal of thought, time and effort into every aspect of the kit from packaging, design, PCB layout/silkscreen, information, and documentation.
Spent a really fun day assembling the SC126, and am now computing like its 1983 :)

Edgar | Dec. 15, 2022

Great kit, fun to build and tinker with

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I built this kit and I am enjoying it a lot! I have added a Pico VGA terminal and it is standalone now. I am teaching my kit how to program BASIC with it and he thinks it is funny :)

Very nice that it has the 8 leds built in which we can access via BASIC, I will use an expansion pcb to build some push buttons :)

Zachary | Nov. 15, 2022

Works well, with software that can use it!

For SC521 Z80 SIO Card Kit for Z50Bus

This card was a little harder to test than the others I had got for my system. Both ports showed up in RomWBW properly configured right away and the MODE program recognized both of them too but things like the TALK program had no way to interact with it. Having never used CP/M before I didn't realize that it didn't have the COM1, COM2, etc. naming convention that DOS had and instead has fixed names like TTY and UL1. Since I had gotten the Z180 processor card (SC503) that already had two serial ports on it I couldn't see a way to assign either port to one of the above names or use them directly. The documentation lists it as compatible with the SC503 but does specify that the software must be compatible to use the extra serial ports, so I thought I must just need to find some of that software.

This was a somewhat difficult hiccup to google because there's not a lot of information on CP/M and extra serial ports to begin with and none of the words involved in this problem are that unique. I eventually found a few threads on the google user group retro-comp that pointed me to a CP/M program called qterm that could use the higher numbered serial ports. The numbering for the serial ports under RomWBW is called their HBIOS unit number and appears when you start the computer. Once this program was configured and running they worked effortlessly.

A steep learning curve comes with the territory though and it works very well! I have it wired into a small board with a MAX232 chip to connect it to a RS232 device and it plays nice with that as well. Very satisfied and highly recommend!

Zachary | Nov. 15, 2022

Stands up to newbie beatings!

For SC510 Prototyping Card Kit for Z50Bus

This was the first prototyping board of any kind I have ever used and it was almost as easy as a breadboard! I used it to re-implement the RC2014 Picoterm board in a Z50 bus form factor and it worked first try. The board held up well to me needing to solder and de-solder repeatedly and all of the holes were centered and aligned. The only hiccup I ran into was that the markings saying which rows/columns were ground/5v were small and there were several times I soldered wires into them without realizing I had connected them to 5v or ground. I suspect that this is more from my inexperience than the fault of the card, and the picture in the listing and documentation showing which spots are 5v/ground is unambiguous and easy to read. Highly recommend!

Zachary | Oct. 4, 2022

Pretty Blinky Lights

For SC506 Digital I/O Card Kit for Z50Bus

This card is very straightforward, when the description says this card is easily controlled from programs or basic it means it! A single byte in memory can operate all of the inputs and outputs. Putting the card together was almost just as straightforward, and it was packaged and shipped securely. The LEDs are bright without being eye-searing, and it even comes with a test button as part of the board.

Zachary | Oct. 4, 2022

Excellent & Fun Computer Kit

For SC591 Z180 RomWBW CP/M Computer Kit for Z50Bus

I wanted to build a CP/M computer and package it all into a case with a terminal and selected this one to do it with. This was my first really complex soldering project and was worried about being out of my depth but the instructions, board, and packaging of supplies was clear and easy to follow. The only hiccup I ran into was that my cheap soldering iron didn't seem to output enough heat to easily solder the ground leads on the power plugs and it took some finessing to get an acceptable solder joint on them. Everything else joined cleanly and without issue, and this was with lead-free solder!

When turning it on for the first time it didn't do anything but that's because I forgot to set the jumpers! There is only a handful and the kit came with a printout describing the most common options for the included software. After putting these on it turned on first try and went straight to the software select menu. It has a version of RomWBW included that has a bunch of options. I was most interested in CP/M but the other options are nice, the machine language monitor in particular is great for testing since it only takes a few keystrokes to blink LEDs. CP/M works as expected and immediately detected the SD card. Getting it formatted took some effort but that's the name of the game with CP/M.

Documentation is all online on a website and it is worth it to read through, its not terribly long but it gets to the point and has everything you would want to know. No mystery jumpers or ambiguous headers! Lastly, I ran into some difficulties connecting this to a hardware terminal and the creator very kindly helped me narrow down the issue to a logic level shifter I was using. 11/10 communication.

Overall this was a great kit that made a beautiful computer. Highly recommend!

Huw | Sept. 13, 2022

Superb kit

For SC131 Pocket-sized Z180 RomWBW CP/M computer kit

This was great fun to put together, I built it over three evenings taking my time particularly in making sure the components that line up with case cut-outs were well positioned. The documentation is first rate, the design itself is very well thought-out, and the various test steps (from using a meter to watching the behaviour of the LEDs) build confidence as you go. There are some slightly fiddly parts around getting the board to fit into the case; if you have a dremel-type tool then it's a breeze to remove the required case pillar and shave away plastic to add a fraction more headroom for the SD card reader, though the "official" method of using a drill and cutters/knife would work too. I'd recommend this kit to any intermediate solderer/builder who wants a compact, attractive and well-specified Z80 system.

Randall | Aug. 17, 2022

Awesome little Z80 kit.

For SC114 Z80 Motherboard Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin

Great simple Z80 retro computer that was easy to build and a joy to get going.

It was as lucky door prize for retro computing fair we held in out local city and the eventually winner was excited to get it and learn about the world of Z80 computers.

Once more a beautiful bit of retro computing design.

Randall.

Randall | Aug. 17, 2022

Great board for adding functionality to my RC2014.

For SC145 Compact Flash Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin

Great simple kit that worked perfectly after building it.

Even got CP/M installed and running beautifully on it.

Great work again from Stephen.

Randall.

Ed | July 3, 2022

Not quite powerful enough to take you to the moon

For SC591 Z180 RomWBW CP/M Computer Kit for Z50Bus

Good stuff. I chose green because it is the most retro of all the colours. Clear instructions and no surprises during assembly meant I could bunk off work and put this together in an afternoon, plug in my SD card with FUZIX on it, and it all Just Works.

If I had a suggestion it would be, since there is a choice of backplanes and the module spacing varies, maybe it would make sense to include the module spacers with the backplane kit rather than with the card kits.

Ed | July 1, 2022

It's not a computer until it has a lot of flashing lights on

For SC506 Digital I/O Card Kit for Z50Bus

Another very nice kit, up to the usual high standard. Knocking a point off because I'd have preferred right-angle LEDs like the other SC500 kits, and there are sixteen of them here that need their leads carefully bending and lining up neatly.

Terry | June 10, 2022

Bloody marvelous and great fun!

For SC503 Z180 Processor Card Kit for Z50Bus

Another excellent product from Stephen.

I think I've purchased pretty much every computer he's created. I look forward to more offerings!

William | June 7, 2022

Great kit and well documented

For SC130 RomWBW CP/M Computer Kit for RCBus-40pin

I really enjoyed putting this together and, to my surprise, it worked on first power on! That is not a credit to my skill but rather Stephen's excellent documentation and build guide. You can build this in an evening and be running CP/M applications, just like the old days, in no time. I'm still figuring out the mechanics with the SD card and getting applications from around the web. I'm (re)learning lots! Shipping to Canada was reasonable and fast.

Mike | May 8, 2022

Blown Away: Fantastic Kit!

For SC130 RomWBW CP/M Computer Kit for RCBus-40pin

Stephen, THANK YOU! The board is beautiful. The documentation is so amazing (even little "watch out!" tips. The kit was really easy to put together. Maybe an hour? It booted the first time! Within an hour I had WordStar up and running! So much fun. I have to admit, my CP/M skills are all but gone. But it was fun to reacquaint myself. Thank you for such an amazing kit at a really impressive price point. This is going to be a part of a display piece, featuring the 3 big early computer influences for me: Timex-Sinclair ZX80, your CP/M board (I had a Sanyo... doubt I'd find THAT!) and a PDP/8 (https://www.tindie.com/products/obso/pdp-8-replica-kit-the-pidp-8/). I learned so much from this project! Sill am!

Andy | May 7, 2022

great kit!

For SC203 RCBus Modular Z180 Computer Kit

The kit is fantastic, but what is really good is the help from Steve, who is totally patient and skilled. thank you!

Nicholas | April 27, 2022

Steller Kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I've built a few of the Z*80 retro kits from various folks, and I have to say the kits of Stephen's I've built (SC126 + SC131) have been the best experience by far. Things that are awesome about his kits:

* Immaculate, sturdy and complete packaging. Very few parts floating around loose in bags, nothing missing.
* Great quality pcbs: very clear footprint labels and part numbers/values for every part.
* Great assembly instructions, including lots of multimeter tests along the way so you catch your soldering errors sooner rather than later.
* Tons of documentation via. his website.
* Helpful & quick tech support.

IMHO If you are going to pick a first Z*80 kit to build, his are the best.

The only suggestions I have for the SC126's successor would be:
* Label the pins on at least one of the headers for easier development / probing.
* Allow enough space around at least one of the ROMs to solder a ZIF socket directly to the. board. (though stacking the ZIF sockets works fine too)
* Unify the power busses - so that when you are powering via FTDI, you can still use the toggle switch.

David | April 26, 2022

Components for RC2014 and Z50Bus!

For Components for RCBus, RC2014 and Z50Bus

SC301 - Serial to USB adapter with cables, does exactly what it suppose to do, but a tad tricky to read the pin-outs!

David | April 26, 2022

Lovely in Black . .. ...

For SC517 Modular Backplane Kit RC2014 to Z50Bus

This is one of those things that looks simple, but takes longer than you think! If you need this is it worth it? YES. Is there anything that needs to be changed? NOPE. Are there anything to consider to add to the next version? I was having a 'bad head' day when I applying the feet! Circles to shows the best location to stick the feet. .. ...

Joey | April 18, 2022

AWESOME KIT!

For SC131 Pocket-sized Z180 RomWBW CP/M computer kit

Just finished building my 2nd SC131--each took about 6 hours being very careful. Each powered right up after configuring my terminal software settings. I am now running CP/M and BASIC again and enjoying as I did in yesteryear. This is really an outstanding kit, priced well, very well thought out, very robust even including tests along the building path. This kit far exceeding my expectations in terms of part and finished product quality, overall operation, and really has some of the best kit documentation I've ever experienced. Sincere KUDOs to Mr. Stephen Cousins for your accomplishment here and your significant contribution to the retro hobby enthusiast! I could not be happier with this product and kit! Thank you tindie for your retro computer kit business and facilitating the sale of great retro computer kits to this community.

Niels | March 27, 2022

Wonderful feature-packed kit!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

What a wonderful piece of kit! The PCB is of good quality. It comes with all the necessary components and the Flash ROMs have been pre-programmed. It took me around 4 hours to solder the kit and do some rudimentary tests. As I am an experienced builder I didn't use the build instructions but did see the build documentation is excellent and well-suited for the less experienced constructor.

The SBC has lots of features, such as a real-time clock and good extensibility in the form of multiple common interface standards, such as SPI, I2C and UART. The 80 pin bus connector is especially useful because it is compatible with the RC2014 standard but also has additional signals broken out. Excellent for both simple and the most advanced projects!

The Z180 CPU, running at over 16 MHz, is a powerhouse. Together with the on-chip peripherals this SBC gives the software developer all they could every want. It really does combine the Z80 instruction set with modern I/O capabilities without sacrificing the retro feel.

Highly recommended as a system to get started and hit the ground running.

Tony | March 25, 2022

Great Kit, Great Documentation and Great/Fast service.

For SC131 Pocket-sized Z180 RomWBW CP/M computer kit

This has got to be the best documented kit, I've ever built! It all went together easily in a couple of hours, and worked first go.
Highly recommended for Z80 fans :-)

Nigel | March 9, 2022

Excellent kit..... Wonderful to build

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Best kit I have ever purchased. Great instructions and great motherboard, which was easy to solder components to.
Worked on first boot. Best online documentation I have seen.
Only issue was with serial terminal programs. Sorted once ansi RealTerm prog used. TeraTerm and Putty had issues.
I thoroughly recommend this kit.

Nick | Feb. 8, 2022

Full speed serial for my SC114

For SC139 Serial Module Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin

A great board that adds a full speed serial port to a SC114. I did encounter one slight problem but it was nothing to do with this card. The FTDI adapter I was using with the bit-bang port simply refused to work with this card. After a great deal of head-scratching, I eventually figured out that the TX/RX lines were incorrectly labelled on my FTDI adapter. I changed to using an official FTDI cable I had recently purchased and all was fine. Another great board from Mr. Cousins. Next stop, building the CF card adapter so I can run CP/M.

Nick | Feb. 3, 2022

Another good kit

For SC129 Digital I/O Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

Another excellent kit supplied with all new genuine parts. Easy to build - it takes no more than an hour for an experienced hobbyist.

Page 3 of 10