Stephen C Cousins

3,397 orders since Sep 20, 2018

Stowmarket, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Ships from United Kingdom.

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.97)

Documentation: (4.90)

Shipping: (4.91)

Communication: (4.92)

All Reviews

Alexander | Nov. 9, 2020

Really cool product

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Soldered the kit in 4 hours, runs immediately despite my incredible soldering competence. Included ROMs have lots of good software to get you started quickly. The expansion possibilities are enormous due to the many slots.

Eric | Nov. 9, 2020

Awesome product and excellent communication.

For SC119 Z180 Memory Module Kit for RCBus-80pin

Had a very good experience, asked if the system would work with the modules I had selected an got direct feedback.
My 11 yo son soldered the modules together and apart from a solder bridge on the backboard it started up immediately.

Thanks for a great product!!!

Javier | Nov. 7, 2020

This kit is the best way to jump into the world of Z80.

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Simply put, SC126 SBC kit has all needed, both for hardware and software tinkerers. The kit design is easy to follow and understand, the BOM has quality parts, it’s a pleasure to solder in the high quality PCB. The parts are carefully packed in the box, not a single pin was out of protective foam.
The firmware is just impressive, kudos to Stephen C. Cousins for for including such good software in such a small space.
The kit has SPI, I2C, serial ports and a backplane with all the Z80 address, data and control signals, so you can expand the system to whatever yo need.
So, if you want to learn and practice Z80 assembly, basic or C, this is the kit to go.

Keith | Nov. 5, 2020

Excellent kit

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

Ordered Friday, arrived Monday, I am in the UK.
Assembly guide is clear, good photos to back the instructions up.
RomWBW is the icing on a fine piece of hardware.

Boban | Oct. 29, 2020

Perfect.

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Perfect kit in every way - beautiful "motherboard", package, delivery, documentation, fun to build, fun to use. Just perfect.

Angus | Oct. 27, 2020

Excellent delivery considering the pandemic

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I ordered on the 8/10/2020 and it is here in Oz on 28/10/2020 .. so 20 days. Australia Post complains of being snowed under so not known how long its been in Oz.

Have checked all the kit. It looks complete. Was very well packed.

Now I have to read all the documentation and stuff online before I hit the soldering iron.

Thank you Stephen.

Update. Even though I have had the kit from November, I finally finished it over the weekend. It works perfectly. Some of my friends say I am too cautious. I don't understand people who get their kits and have them running in an hour or so. Where is the pleasure in that.
I made one change - there was mention of large blue boxes elsewhere relating to this. When I worked with them, red lights meant the power was on or available and a yellow (amber) light said that your day had completely changed direction, so drop everything you planned to do. So I have a red power on light.
The documentation was overall, pretty good but a little mixed up in what could be done with no power, power with no chips and power with the chips inserted. Once you got to the latter stage it was either running or not. SUCCESS - mine ran.
Now trying to figure the instructions to have a CP/M/MSDOS combination on the SD card for easy file transfer.
I have a Linc80, so have a heap of CF cards for that so am going to get a CF adaptor for the SC126 and see what I can do.
Overall, an excellent kit. Thank you to all concerned with its design and implementation.
The CF card kit went together easy and is working fine. Seems to be a lot less fussy than the Linc80 re CF cards, though still only works with smaller (?) CF cards. It did not see a 2GB I tried.

BIG QUESTION - STANDARDS - why can't the SC126 read the Linc80 CF cards. To my mind they have identical data on them and the same rules about "disk" sizes (8MB) so why can't they read/write each others disks. Surely what is written to the disk should be the same?

At least the SC126 can use a FAT partition to transfer many files at a time from my Windows machine to it.

Mark | Oct. 20, 2020

Received in good order.

For Components for RCBus, RC2014 and Z50Bus

I added a few extra things to my RC2014 order and they arrived as expected.

Shipping was very quick, all the way out to Australia, despite the dramas with Covid. No tracking was provided which would always add a level of confidence, but that would raise costs and hey, it got here just fine.

Mark | Oct. 20, 2020

Works as Intended, but could be improved!

For SC112 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

Every RC2014 project needs a backplane, right? And this one does the trick and includes a power switch and reset button, so all good.

The only improvement I can see could be worthwhile is that this version assumes you have an exactly 5v DC power supply, which isn't always at hand. I have dozens of power blocks that are anything from 6v to 12v that could be used (and are already on my power board for all the other projects needing power), if this board had a regulator (7805) and a couple larger capacitors for smoothing. I know, this would increase the cost and size of this kit, and 5v power packs are pretty easy to buy... but 5v isn't all that commonly used by other devices around your home. Anyway, my 2c.

Shipping was very quick, all the way out to Australia, despite the dramas with Covid. No tracking was provided which would always add a level of confidence, but that would raise costs and hey, it got here just fine, so all good.

Mark | Oct. 20, 2020

Works a Treat! Highly Recommended

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

I consider this an essential protoyping board that every RC2014 system should have... Maybe not connected in all the time, but when you want to design your own board, or you want to connect some device you have on hand, this is the go-to board you want to have. Very easy to assemble and very easy to program for.

Shipping was very quick, all the way out to Australia, despite the dramas with Covid. No tracking was provided which would always add a level of confidence, buit that would raise costs and hey, it got here just fine.

Mark | Oct. 20, 2020

The only Z80 board you need!

For SC108 Z80 Processor Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

The Z80 is the heart of any RC2014 system and this little wonder is an absolute gem. How it manages to squeeze in a Z80, a big ROM and 32k of RAM all on one tiny board is impressive PCB-fu! It is also one of the few Z80 boards which actually expands out ALL the Z80 pins out to a full RC80/BP80 80 pin bus, which I needed for my kits. The documentation that comes with it is enough to put it together, but then the online documentation, that covers the supplied Monitor ROM, is just brilliant. Highly recommend this board for the heart and brains of your project.

Shipping was very quick, all the way out to Australia, despite the dramas with Covid. No tracking was provided which would always add a level of confidence, but that would raise costs and hey, it got here just fine.

Mark | Oct. 20, 2020

Not used it yet, but looks the goods.

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

Have not had a major need for this as of yet, but hope to in the future.

Shipping was very quick, all the way out to Australia, despite the dramas with Covid. No tracking was provided which would always add a level of confidence, but that would raise costs and hey, it got here just fine.

Martin | Oct. 14, 2020

Another great kit, Steve

For SC111 Z180 CPU Module Kit for RCBus-80pin

I built the SC111, SC112 motherboard and SC119 memory module over a couple of evenings. Great build documentation in your kits and on your website. I added a spare CF board from my RC2014 and an FTDI cable and the system fired right up. Thanks again, Steve, for your time and effort in making such an amazing kit!!!

Alexander | Oct. 13, 2020

Very Nice Kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Very nice kit, build quality is very good. Documentation was very clear which for me not being an experienced builder was very helpful. Once I started the build it came together pretty quick Once complete I gave it a quick clean and powered it on came to life first try got into CP/M and have since spent months trying to find some software & manuals.

Overall a very nice kit, relatively easy to build and easy to use and well worth the money.

Stefan | Oct. 10, 2020

Excellent: Great product, fast delivery

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

The kit has been shipped at the day of the order and arrived just 6 days later, despite international delivery.

The quality of the board and the components was very good and the complete assembly with the help of the excellent guide was only a matter of a few hours.
The assembly guide is not only very detailed with a lot of pictures which clearly shows how to mount every part, it also contains a lot of checkpoints, so that you can be sure, not having created a short circuit.

The finally assembled machine worked immediately. Overall a very pleasant experience.

Richard | Sept. 29, 2020

An excellent kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Well documented, complete and straightforward to assemble. Most importantly, it works well and it is suprisingly fast !

José Ángel | Sept. 25, 2020

GOOD CHOICE.

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

This is my first z180 SBC.

Honestly, I´m fairly new to the retrocomputing world and I bought this computer with two goals in mind: to discover the CP/M and to learn assembly language for this microprocessor.

I chose the SC130 because it offered a great deal for its price and I think it was a good decision.

The kit arrived within a week, well packaged and was easy to build (great manual, very detailed). There are tons of documentation about the Z80/180 and the CP/M and besides, there is an active and helpful community.

I had some troubles with Tera Term and the seller wrote my back in a short time. Finally I changed to Putty and all went smooth.

To sum up, a recomendable choice for any beginner.

Erlend | Aug. 29, 2020

All good

For SC110 RCBus-40pin+ Serial and Timer Kit for RC2014

I built this and connected it to a laptop. My first set-up was with a 9v battery and an LM7805, but I've now moved to powering the RC2014 system via the USB to TTL adapter. It just required unplugging the 9v battery and installing the top jumper. My soldering initially wasn't that great and I was only receiving characters on the laptop, but reviewing the bad solder points I found the one I had failed to solder properly and the set-up started working. First programs running successfully.

Erlend | Aug. 29, 2020

Good quality kit

For SC108 Z80 Processor Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

The kit came well packed, and has excellent documentation. Even for me as a beginner it was easy to solder together and the board worked first time. The only small challenge I had at first was that the crystal did not quite fit the socket for it, but that just took a little bit of trying. If more interesting boards show up from Stephen I probably will end up building those too :-)

Jaittarius | Aug. 25, 2020

One of the best retrobrew computer kits!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I've built many Z80 based SBCs and this one is the best. System is extremely stable with great performance with tons of expansion options to choose from. Easy to assemble with good build quality and the color documentation is a nice touch. Had a ton of fun building this and may purchase another just for the fun of building it again. Highly recommended for retro SBC fans

Jim | Aug. 23, 2020

A great kit!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I had some health issues last year and botched the build of a project. I was looking for something to build some confidence (I've built a lot of radios and computers over the years and most have worked on the first try). This one did that--I skipped a lot of the checks suggested along the way and wondered if I'd regret it later. But the instructions were good, no errata tucked away for you to discover later, and plenty of pictures. Still figuring out the nuances of RomWBW, but love the system. Ordered two serial ports because xmodem transfers never work with just one--except they do on this one! I figured I'd give it a try before firing up the second serial port and it worked flawlessly. Transferred my favorite assembler over and tested the Z180 logic in my CPU identifier for the first time. (It worked.) Wrote a BASIC program to tinker with the onboard LEDs. A nice kit that I'll be recommending.

Dylan | Aug. 23, 2020

One very happy customer!

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

This kit is my first introduction to retro computing since using a ZX Spectrum as a teenager. I'm very impressed, a huge thanks to Stephen. You've recaptured the excitement that modern computing has lost.

The assembly was straight forward and the instructions are excellent.

The only possible area for improvement would be adding an option to include some right-angle headers and 6-pin dupont cables for the serial and SD card adaptors. Finding the dupont cables here in New Zealand is proving a pain.

Christopher | Aug. 13, 2020

another solid kit!

For SC113 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

This is the third kit of Stephen's I've ordered (also got the SC129 and SC126 which I used to test this kit) and I have to say, as usual, top notch kit. I like that I can use it interchangeably with other kits and can connect multiple of these to connect more boards. Good work! Definitely recommend and I intend to purchase more of his kits!

Christopher | Aug. 13, 2020

fantastic kit!

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

Just received and assembled my kit today. I tested this with an SC126 (highly recommend that kit too!) and it worked straight away and exactly as expected. Within minutes I was sending byte values to control the output pins which I tied to an arguing. Works great! Stephen's kits are top notch! The shipping was much faster than anticipated to the U.S. as well.

Piero Giorgio | Aug. 12, 2020

Retro computing at its best

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Very nice, very expandable retro computing system... You can relive the glorious initial days of computing, or even just get things done. And make use of a vast software base from the CP/M times.

Masaki | Aug. 10, 2020

Excellent kit

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

Ordered late July and received in less than two weeks. (I live in Michigan USA). Spend two sitting, 2 hours each in my work station and I had a working CP/M computer. As many have mentioned, the assembly instruction is very easy to follow, and the quality of PCB is excellent. Attention to detail, such as there is a silk screen on the back of PCB that says "solder on this side" shows how much care was given to the design of this board. I was a bit afraid of the size of the components and PCB (I am 67 years old and my eyes are quickly deteriorating) but this was very easy assembly, again thanks to the excellent assembly instruction. I don't think I had such a fun soldering a kit since early days of HeathKit.

Mogens | Aug. 5, 2020

Great add-on for my SC114

For SC132 Z80 SIO/0 Module Kit for RC2014/RCBus-40pin+

I wanted a faster serial I/O for my SC114, and decided to buy this module. Very clear assembly instructions, easy to follow, and easy to build. High quality, as for all products from Stephen.

The module just worked after assembly. When mounting the module in the 40-pin connector of the SC114 , be careful to fit it correctly - there are extra pins on the header not used in the SC114. Those pins do not go into the connector. Perhaps the documentation could be slightly improved regarding how to mount the module correctly on an SC114.

If you like to run faster I/O than the standard 9600 baud of the SC114, I highly recommend this module,

Kurt | Aug. 3, 2020

SC129

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

Very good product. Works flawlessly.
Assembly was not a problem.
Now it also flashes in the room.

Kurt

Christopher | Aug. 2, 2020

Excellent board!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

This is a fantastic kit! Shipping was faster than expected coming to the U.S. I had this assembled and up and running in just a few hours. Worked on the first try, no troubleshooting or tracing. I love the built-in dual ROM, dual serial ports, SPI, and I2C. I like the modular backplane too. Good work!

Erlend | July 31, 2020

Absolutely wonderful

For SC112 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

A great experience. Stephen is very quick to answer questions, quickly send out the product, and it arrived in good condition. All nicely packaged in separate labeled kits and with documentation. Add to that a very reasonable price and from what i can tell very good designs. now i just need to get my new soldering station before i can put things together :-)

Eric | July 28, 2020

Excellent SBC

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I bought this kit and even with overseas shipping received it quickly.

It went together in one evening and worked on the first go. The instructions were very clear and the assembly was easy. I am very pleased with the SC126. It's a great platform for RomWBW and is expandable.

I was so pleased I've ordered more items from this seller.

Tadas | July 16, 2020

well thought out kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

* Rock solid stable
* Loaded with lots of goodies in the ROM from the beginning
* Great docs
* Really detailed and well done silkscreen

Overall awesome kit!

Piero | July 14, 2020

Great kit!

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

This kit is really great. The PCB gives a feeling of precise working, and when soldering you can feel the Copper of the Ground and Vcc traces...
Once solved a little problem (caused by a superficial testing on my side) it works better than "the real thing" I used "in the times when". Thanks to the generosity of several software houses, a lot of old commercial CP/M software is now available freely, including plenty of programming language suites. Maybe I will get a chance to refine some really old programs of mine. All in all, it's a breath of youth!

Kurt | July 11, 2020

SC126

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Very good product.
Very fast delivery.
Documentation and support very good.
I would buy again.
Kurt

Francis | July 9, 2020

Perfect I/O board, flexible and easy to build

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

Unbeatable price for this easy and powerful I/O kit. The port number selection makes it possible to multiply boards without conflicts. A high quality great buy for any RC2014 based computer. And Stephen's support is as great as usual.

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