Every now and then, a friend points me at something so gloriously geeky that I drool in desire all over my keyboard. Today’s rabbit hole comes courtesy of my old chum Alvin Brown, who guided me to the RC2014.
This little scamp (the RC2014, not Alvin) is a modular, build-it-yourself, Z80-powered marvel that transports you back to the halcyon days when home computers had character, charm, and more through-hole pins than you could shake a soldering iron at.
Meet the RC2014 (Click image to see a larger version -- Source: The RC2014 website)
The RC2014 isn’t a clone of any famous machine—not a ZX81, not an Altair, not a NASCOM—but it certainly evokes the same spirit. It’s a machine you build, you touch, and—most importantly—you understand. You assemble the kit yourself, soldering each through-hole component with gusto and abandon (and aplomb, of course). When you're done, the system boots into Microsoft BASIC.
One great thing about this project is its modularity. The RC2014 ecosystem offers backplanes large and small, storage modules, enhanced serial boards, video output cards, CompactFlash interfaces, extra RAM, CP/M-friendly expansions, and… it’s like LEGO for retro-computing enthusiasts.
Is this project still active? You bet your sweet solder wick it is. Kits continue to be sold, modules continue to be released, and folks continue to blog about their builds.
If you’re yearning for a project that reconnects you with the roots of our digital age—something educational, tactile, and unabashedly retro—the RC2014 might just be calling your name (it’s certainly calling mine), so grab a soldering iron and prepare to party like it’s 1979!
Bit fancy for 1979. In 1979 I was trying to wire-wrap an 8080A on STD44 cards, the Z80 was hot news but no way to get them. S-100 stuff was too expensive on an E-1’s paycheck.
Technician in the early ’80s, nothing I worked on was so “artistic”. Any color you wanted as long as it was either natural or green.
Fewer choices, but everything was so new and exciting back then 🙂
Are there RC2014 plans to use modern Zilog eZ80 or Z180 processors to replace out-of-production Z80?
You’d have to ask them about that — but it is a really cool project — I want one!!!
I cut my teeth on the 8080 and Z80 type processors, and a lot of fun it was too. I got some chucked-out SCADA systems with Z80 based processor and memory boards, and various digital and analogue I/O boards, and I’d love to play with those, even though an Arduino board 1/100 the size would knock spots off them…. Just need some time.
I just now (like a couple of minutes ago) discovered that although the Z80 was an 8-bit machine, its ALU was only 4-bits wide!!!