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

Mogens | July 3, 2020

SC126 - Highly recommended and very capable system

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

This is an excellent kit to build your own Z180 microcomputer. It is a fantastic retro-experience and you end up with a fully functional system, very capable of running real (retro-)applications.

I initially built the smaller and also excellent SC114 kit, since I had no experience at all with soldering and building electronics (I am a software engineer...). I love the simplicity of the SC114, and it was a great opportunity to learn about building digital computer electronics. It made me confident that I could build the SC126 as well.

Documentation and assembly guide is very clear; take the time to read through everything before soldering, and don’t rush it if (like me) you only have little experience with electronics. But don’t be scared :) it is not too difficult - my kit worked on first startup. Do the quick tests as described during assembly, and you will know you are on track.

Included ROMs offer a lot of software to explore out of the box, and the SD card adapter is a great “mass storage solution” for additional software and data.
I recommend downloading and installing the “hd_combo.img” from ROMWBW to an SD card, and try the ZPM3 system, which is a capable OS compatible with CP/M.

I have set up a Raspberry Pi as “frontend” running the minicom terminal emulator, with SSH access. In this way, I can access my SC126 from anywhere 24/7.

I highly recommend the SC126 kit, which is a very high quality, professional product at an attractive price.

Yoshiaki | June 27, 2020

The best RC2014 all in one kit!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I bought this kit in November last year as my first RC2014.
Since then, I enhanced CF memory board, SC129 Digital I/O Module, Dr scott's Bus monitor, Single stepper, YM2149 sound card, and J.B.Lang's TMS9918 video card,etc.
This genius Z180 board is equipped with 512k/512k paging memory and RTC for RomWBW, therefore no need to add function with other boards basically.
Maybe you might have to buy bus extension board for future enhancement fun.
Thank you Steve, you introduced me to awesome RC2014 world.
And I'm very glad to hear this SC126 selling over +500 kits !
Congratulations and thank you for your kind support !
Anyway, this is very good kit for newcomer to start RC2014 all in one kit and very affordable price.

Mark | June 27, 2020

Fantastic little kit

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

I purchased just the PCB and components and designed a little case for 3D printing. The STLs can be downloaded here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4505086

Gerald | June 26, 2020

Great quality backplane

For SC112 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

This Backplane kit is a level ahead of the official RC2014 Backplane products, having a well-considered design and its excellently executed.

I have an official RC2014 Backplane Pro but was looking for something that would allow me to create an RC2014 module configuration that would support some of my own module development. Build was quite straightforward, guided and supported by great quality documentation. Assembly is greatly aided by the supplied quality board and components.

To is serving my purposes admirably but could be great base from which to build a more regular RC2014 machine.

Dominic | June 23, 2020

Exceeds expectations, this is an excellent project.

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

Price was excellent, delivery across the pond was swift. This was a well packaged and well presented project. You can begin assembly as soon as you open the box. I had a question about file transfer I put the the seller that was immediately replied to. thanks!

The PCB is labeled on both sides, assembly will take 2 plus hours there is mercifully no surface mount soldering so anyone with a decent soldering iron and moderate experience can put this together. Don't rush, take your time and give the instructions a once over before diving in. The high definition photo online and the excellent silkscreen text on the PCB are very helpful. Once assembled and connected serially (I recommend using ExtrapuTTy because it has built in xmodem file transfer) the ROM based CP/M has xm.com to initiate xmodem file transfer with your host. Loading up your CP/M games is easy once you get started. Controlling the output to the LED readout on the board is a simple command in mbasic or assembler so let your first program be some kind of blinky lights to celebrate a job well done.

One more thing my other z80 projects ran at 2 to 4 mhz, this board is much faster and the 115200 baud rate is also much faster than what I was used to. Very responsive

other nice things: Battery backed RTC, all glue logic done with TTL, SD card "hard drive" all indicators of a well engineered project.

Highly recommended to anyone even slightly interested in retro computing, you wont regret this purchase.

Kurt | June 22, 2020

SC114

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

A very good product.
Simple construction thanks to a very good description.
The support is excellent.
All around a successful product.
Unreservedly recommended.

Kurt

John | June 15, 2020

Good project, lots of extras, and open to abuse

For SC112 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

The "SC" kits are always very well presented, spec'd and great value for money. This backplane was no different, and fit my needs perfectly.

The "open to abuse" part comes about because it's easy to adapt the kit to exactly what you need. For example, I needed a way to add a bus to another Z80/RC2014 computer, but I needed to connect to it from a header soldered underneath the board. Not a problem: with the right headers I had it working first time, and now I've a flexible system that meets my needs. Thank you!

John | June 13, 2020

Something to Aspire To

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

As a fellow hardware designer in the Z80 retrocomputing community, I can say that Steve's kits are something to aspire to. I recently bought his SC126 Z180 motherboard, SC112 backplane, and SC113 backplane expander, and all are of the highest quality and an incredible value for the money. The amount of effort he puts into both the design of his boards and the documentation for them is outstanding. Having designed a few boards of my own, I know how much work this is. He's very responsive to questions or feedback on the RC2014-Z80 or retro-comp forums. He has been an excellent contributor to the community for his own products and beyond. Highly recommended--I would not hesitate to buy any of his products again.

Jessica | June 6, 2020

Quite an amazing kit

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

This is an awesome kit. The best I've assembled yet. Very simple to assemble with the instructions from the website. The packaging is nice withe the parts divided up sensibly. Everything fits together perfectly and the layout leaves plenty of space to solder everything.

I assembled the LEDs the way Phillip Stevens did and it worked out well.

Clive | June 4, 2020

High quality kit

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

This kit arrived promptly, was well packaged with ESD protection as well. Highly quality pcb ,case and instructions. Assembly was straightforward -no smt. Worked first time.
Now I just need to find how to load up my sd card with Star Trek..

Kurt | June 2, 2020

SC130

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

This small system is outstanding.
Very suitable for the first steps with CP / M.
I have some programs (BASCOM, C and ASM)
tested. It works and is a real pleasure.
1984-1990 I have div. Software programmed.
They were used on Kaypro and Sharp.

I can't get KSAM to work. I suspect the Z180 doesn't work with KSAM. With a Z80 could work.
KSAM supports index sequential file management.

I can fully recommend the system.

Kurt Pieper

Franklin | June 2, 2020

Detailed assembly guide makes for very nice build

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

I just finished building the SC131 kit and was very pleased with how precisely everything went together according to plan. A very nice, quality kit. I only have two comments I'd like to make (not complaints, just little surprises):

1) I run my 48-Watt soldering iron at ~450 degrees and use eutectic Ersin or Alpha Metals Sn-Pb solder. I noticed that any pad that was connected to a ground plane on both sides of the board required significantly longer to reach the 361 degree melting point of the solder and thus for the solder to flow on the pad. Thus while most pins required ~3 or 4 seconds to solder, those with the ground plane pads took more like 8 seconds to flow; this was most noticeable when soldering the decoupling capacitors. After I noticed this, I cranked up the temperature a little bit on the iron for these pads.

2) When time came to test with terminal software (I use TeraTerm) talking to the USB-FTDI adapter, I found that on Windows 10, the appropriate USB-FTDI driver was not automatically installed. Rather, I needed to run Windows Update to install the driver. Also note that the terminal software does not connect quickly enough to the FTDI adapter to catch the initial power-up messages after plugging in the USB; the RESET button must be pressed to see those messages after power up.

For preliminary testing, I booted the ROM-based CP/M and transferred a .COM utility to the RAM Disk using XMODEM; it worked fine. Now I just need to read all the documentation to find out how to use the SD card for non-volatile disk storage. I was somewhat astonished to see the contents of the RAM Disk are retained for up to 15 seconds after removal of power; I have no idea how this is possible, but I see it with my own eyes.

Ed | May 29, 2020

Five-star kit, would buy again.

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

This is a very nice kit, superbly packaged and with comprehensive documentation in the box and on www.scc.me.uk. Shipping to Switzerland took just a week even with the current delays.

Construction was straightforward; a few of the ground plane connections took a while to warm up and I had to go over those again (a couple of LED cathodes, and the battery holder) after running through the checklist in the assembly instructions. Once those were fixed it was ready to go and since then I've been playing Zork on it non-stop.

The next time I build one I'd fit the resistor network RP1 before the IC sockets; it was a bit fiddly dropping it in the holes with the obstacles in the way on either side. I had to double-check the pictures before plugging in the SD card adapter because both slots are labelled "SPI SD Card 2".

It's very convenient to be able to power the board from the plug-in USB serial adapter; it keeps the space on my desk much tidier than it would be with a separate power cable, and having to find somewhere to plug in another supply.

Scott | May 29, 2020

Excellent little kit. Works great for CP/M.

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

Excellent little kit. Fast to put together. Excellent documentation. Gives photos for everything, recommended order for installing parts and even little tips on when to test for shorts.
Gives you old school Z80 on a faster Z180 with 512KB RAM and 512KB ROM and micro-SD expansion. Extra memory shows up as spare drives.
CP/M as well as Forth and a couple versions of BASIC come on the default image.
Good for retro memories as well as can be used for real things too.

Daria | May 28, 2020

Wow! ... Fantastic product and great documentation!

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

Love it, very simple to put together and it just works. Must have card for simple IO tinkering and testing. Great price too!

Anatoly | May 24, 2020

Great Z180 Complete Kit

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

This is a well designed Z180 kit including the enclosure. Stephen Cousins does his typical excellent job with the documentation and details for assembly. This kit includes some minor component modifications to get the board and enclosure to fit together. The instructions for these are explained clearly in the documentation including pictures of what needs to be done. The design only has 5 IC's, so it assembled very quickly. After assembly and close inspection of all the solder joints, I applied power and the Z180 system came to life. If you are interested in building a Z180 system, the SC131 is a good selection.

Steven | May 24, 2020

Great cp/m kit

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

Excellent assembly guide, the best documentation I have seen for any kit on tindie, If your a beginner then this is a really good retrobrew computer to get started with. Had no difficulties and the board fitted just fine in the case without any major adjustments. Its fun to use CP/M again.

Mogens | May 23, 2020

Excellent Quality

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

I got my SC114 kit after about one week, everything carefully packed.

The kit is very high quality, and very well documented. If you read and follow the instructions, the kit is easy to assemble (very little soldering experience needed).
The software included in the ROM is also excellent, and quickly gets you started in either BASIC or Z80 assembler.

To me, this is a fun trip down memory lane; I was hacking along on the ZX81 in assembler nearly 40 years ago... I have been playing with some of the nice Z80 software emulators, but nothing beats the feel of coding to the "bare metal"!
Also, I like the simplicity of the kit, which actually makes it possible to understand how everything works in detail at the hardware level.

Thank you very much for a great kit - I highly recommend it for everyone who wants to try REAL retro-computing.

Juan | May 23, 2020

Great Kit

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

This shipped quickly - Thanks.

The detailed instructions & Troubleshooting guide really helped me get this together and fix it. The only problem I had was with the serial interface. I would recommend including the USB-Serial adapter in this kit as one I already owned did not provide a stable power supply.

Fun to build and there is quite a lot you can do with this when it is complete, the case makes it look very neat and hides my terrible soldering nicely.

cheers,
Juan

Radek | May 19, 2020

I'm very satisfied with this product.

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

The SC126 has very good documentation at it was easy to assembly it.
It is good product with excellent balance between functionality and complexity.

David | May 16, 2020

Wonderful SBC!

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

I was looking for an old school project to keep me busy and discovered RC2014. After spending time looking at options decided on this kit and absolutely glad I did.

Packaging - small box with all you need.
Documentation - brilliant. Can't understate how easy and simple the documents are to follow. Sheets to check you have all the components, assembly guides to make sure you do things in the right order and finally checks to make sure you haven't broken it as you go along!

Support - there is a massive and friendly base of people using and looking at old school electronics like this.

Software - comes with latest RomWBW so you can run CP/M 2.2 out of the box! And two different BASIC to play with.

Highly recommended kit - you can't go wrong here!

Already bought two more to expand and have digital IO as well as sound!

Thanks Steven.

Simon | May 15, 2020

Very professional kit

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I bought this kit a few weeks ago to play around with the Z180: it's nice to be able to program the microprocessor directly and not have layers of operating system in the way!
This is a very professionally produced kit and the instructions are both clear and comprehensive. The guide to building the kit as well as simple testing and trouble shooting are excellent.
I have subsequently bought a number of other kits form Steve and they are all excellent quality with great documentation as well as being very good value.
I would also add that even with the delays due to the virus, all the kits arrived very quickly and very well packed.
I cannot recommend these kits highly enough.

Gianluca | May 14, 2020

a great cp/m computer in a pocket size

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

The kit is easy and fun to build, I'm not an expert in soldering and it took me a couple of hours to build it.
The on-line documentation is quite useful and complete.
In order to get the software working, I recommend to read the "RomWBW Getting Started.pdf", I have installed the "hd_combo.img" in my SD to have a full choice of operative systems, and even wordstar 4!
If you, like me, want to use wordstar, don't forget to launch winstall.com (or wschange.com) first, and choose the correct type of terminal (vt-100/ansi).

I am quite happy with my sc131; now I have a small cp/m retro computer to play with.

Xander | May 13, 2020

Super easy to assemble and even easier to use!

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

I got this together with my SC126, as a first step into the world of Retro Computing. The building instructions for this were very easy to follow and it worked perfectly after the assembly. I am very pleased. Plus it's got lots of colourful LEDs, who doesn't love those?

Catalin | May 5, 2020

Excellent product

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

From our very first interactions Steve went above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction. It's very clear he's very passionate and loves these products.

The board and all associated components were received a couple days later, very well packaged. Every little detail has been well thought out and shows the love for the product and respect for the customers.

Included in the package is a A4 page with the kit contents. Taking the components from the shipping bags and placing them in the proper spots on this page took about 30 minutes, including measuring the resistors with a multimeter to double check the matched color codes to values.

Next step was to visit the assembly instructions web page on Steve's site (also printed on the above mentioned A4 paper) to get a general idea of the assembly process. Everything is straightforward, and all components are clearly printed on the board itself. If you have basic experience you don't even need to refer back to the web page while soldering the entire board.

Soldering took about a day. Sure, it could've been done in 2 - 3 hours, but why rush? Better savor the experience, like a good box of fine chocolates. Then, as told on the assembly instructions, followed up with thorough visual inspection of the solder joints and multimeter checks for shorts in various key places on the board. I confess I skipped on the voltage checks, but can you blame me? By that point I was getting impatient to get the whole thing running and trusted Steve had already checked the components for correct functioning.

Placed in the ICs and oscillator, hooked up the serial to Usb converter and the SD card adapter, triple checked that all jumpers were in the right positions according to the user guide and proceeded to connect it all to the computer. The 8 on board leds proceeded to light up one after the other as the system was starting up. Then, much to my surprise, all of them stayed lit...

This caused a bit of confusion. According to the assembly instructions the leds should've all turned off at some point. A quick check on the common errors page cleared the confusion. See, the system comes with 2 Flash chips. Apparently the led behavior described in the assembly instructions is for the Small Computer Monitor (SCM). But if the jumpers are placed in the positions shown in the assembly instructions RomWBW is used on power up and not SCM. And with RomWBW the leds all stay lit until a boot device is selected thru the terminal. Phew!

On Windows 10 the drivers for the serial to USB converter board included in my package weren't automatically installed, but were easy to install manually. After installing Tera Term I was able to see the boot messages from the board and then fun began. There's a lot packed in the RomWBW Flash chip, from CP/M to Z-System and even a small game so you can hit the ground running and already have a lot of stuff to play with immediately after assembly.

To sum up, apart from the small confusion with the leds which perhaps can be cleared in future by minor edits to the assembly instructions the entire build process was extremely fun and smooth and the system ran on first power on. Looking forward to playing with it further and expanding it's possibilities over time with more hardware and software.

If you're a computer enthusiast looking to build your own 8 bit computer you can't go wrong buying this product. Highly recommended!

Response from Stephen C Cousins | May 6, 2020

Thanks for the feedback.
I've now included a short description in the assembly guide to clarify what the LEDs indicate at power-up for RomWBW. The description for the Small Computer Monitor remains as it depends on which position you fit the ROMs as to which will run with the default jumper settings.

Xander | May 3, 2020

So much fun to put together and play with!

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

I ordered this kit as my first step into the world of Retro Computing. It's a lot of fun to solder together. The instructions on the site are very clear, with a couple of steps long the way, where you check your work, make sure everything is still as it should be, before proceeding any further. The board worked right off the bat, once I had all the chips inserted, so that was a great experience. The creator is active on the Google group, and very helpful.
Now I just need to figure out all the amazing things I can do with it!

Jim | May 3, 2020

SC131 Good Z80 CP?M kit

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

This is a well documented key thats an easy to assemble, and is a good "Z80" CP/M computer. 512 of RAM, fast processor, two serial ports (one used for the console). It has the basic OS's stored in flash (which can be write protected), it also can boot from and/or run programs stored on the SD card. The package comes with a nice case, font and rear panels. This would be a good project for a beginner or someone who wants a portable CP/M computer.

Gerald | May 2, 2020

More Quality Product for the SC range

For SC113 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

This product provides a backplane extension to some of the other SC computing products. It offers six extra 80-pin slots but could, with a little diligence, provide you with slots for a hybrid/standalone computing solution using SC or RC2014 compatible plugin cards.

Product quality is very good, including the assembly and user guides.

In my particular case, it has provided a very robust bus extension for my SC126.

Gerald | May 2, 2020

Top Quality Product

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

The board and components supplied in this kit are very good quality. I'm doing some exploration of the 8-bit retro micro market and in doing so, discovered this kit.

It's a very straightforward assembly, well-documented and includes 'waypoint' testing, to ensure you haven't had any construction faux pas. As the Z180 is a superset version of the Z80, many retro fans are likely to be familiar with this architecture but as it also includes many of the most useful peripherals on the same chip, including a Memory Management Unit which extends the memory scope from 64Kbytes to 1Mbytes. Rom options are supplied so you can install the designer's own ROM (which has all the yesteryear features of a 'Monitor' similar to the NASCOM...) as well as a RomWBW that provides a ROM-based CP/M, Z OS, MBasic (similar to RC2014's Basic ROM), Tiny Basic, Forth.

If you're looking for something with expandability that's got a lot straight out of the starting blocks, I recommend this as a great choice.

Peter | April 29, 2020

Great single board computer

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

A Z180 based single board computer kit. The circuit boards were clean and of good quality, and a guide for assembly and debugging was available online.
The board was moderately easy to build and worked first time (after a little coaxing to get communication between it and a laptop). The result is a CP/M computer with standard software utilities and an adequate selection of development tools (editor, assembler, loader, debugger). This is an excellent product on which to learn the CP/M operating system (for old times sake) and assembly language programming. Next steps are to install a C compiler and to use the board to control a small home automation system.

Miodrag | April 25, 2020

Best kit ever

For SC126 Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit for RCBus

This one is best kit ever, by my opinion. It is complete system based on Z180 and have all capabilities you seen to enjoy world of CP/M. Stephen did a great job documenting assembly process (including all options) and it was really joy soldering kit and playing with it.

Miodrag | April 25, 2020

Great product

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

Very easy to build with complete assembly instructions, so even plain beginners can solder it.
Complete SBC for those that would just like to try out but also with ability to expand.
Great documentation and communication from Stephen side.

Stephen | April 24, 2020

Perfect

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

This is one of the best kits I have ever purchased. The ICs are carefully packed in anti-static bags. The color documentation was very clear and concise. Best yet, it worked on first power-up.
Shipping and communication was wonderful. I am in the USA and was surprised at how quickly the kit arrived.
I would not hesitate to buy anything from this seller.

Yves | April 22, 2020

Great kit, lovingly put together

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

If you're looking for an easy-to-build Z80 kit - this is it!
I had mine up and running in less than 2 hours.

The documentation on the website is great - lots of attention paid to details.
I can for sure say that there has been a lot of work flowing into getting a documentation on that level of consistency (also true for the website)
The software support is also great, as the SC131 is directly supported as target platform by the ROMWBW
Again, this doesn't happen spontaneously, but only by intensive cooperation between the two authors and designers.

Thanks a lot for this nice piece of equipment.
Yves

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