iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

NickT6630 @nickt6630.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Post an photo of your first home made computer project. My first was this Z80 system kit designed and sold in the UK by Maplin Electronics which I had in 1990 It had a Monitor 2K EPROM, 6K RAM, HEX keypad and 7 segment display to enter machine code. An edge connector allowed further I/O expansion

A keypad and 7 segement LED display module for entering hexadecimal numbers in machine code for a Z80 computer.

A Z80 CPU board with 2K EPROM, 6K RAM and a socket for an 8279 keyboard display interface chip. An edge connector for I/O expancion.

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Ben Ryves @benryves.com · 10/09/2026

I don't have any good photos but this was my first attempt from around 2008. It ran BBC BASIC from ROM. I had to order most of the parts online, as by that point my local Maplin were only really useful for component kits.

Photo of a home-brew Z80 computer assembled on two pieces of stripboard running BBC BASIC.

Photo of the CPU and memory board for the computer, consisting of a Z80 CPU, some RAM and ROM, and some glue logic.

Photo of the I/O board for the computer, consisting of some latch chips, PS/2 ports, a pin header for the LCD connection and some glue logic.

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