Tindie

SC126 Z180 SBC / Motherboard Kit

(15 Reviews)

An expandable Z180 motherboard supplied with RomWBW (including CP/M)

Designed by Stephen C Cousins in United Kingdom

2019-07-15T16:51:05.728Z-SC126 v1.0 Assembled - 3x2 - 3048x2032.jpg

2019-07-17T07:56:00.455Z-SC126 v1.0 Accessories - 3x2 - 3318x2212 - with label.jpg

2019-10-22T08:42:41.488Z-SC126 v1.0 Kit Boxed 2 - 3x2 - 2935x1957.jpg

2019-07-15T16:51:05.728Z-SC126 v1.0 Kit Contents - 3x2 - 3729x2640.jpg

2019-07-15T16:51:05.728Z-SC126 v1.0 PCB Image - 3x2 - Green - Top.jpg

2019-08-13T10:57:41.208Z-SC126 v1.0 PCB Image - 3x2 - Green - Bottom.jpg

2019-10-22T08:53:17.705Z-SC126 v1.0 In Use 2 - 3x2 - 4134x2800 - a.jpg

2019-10-22T08:53:17.705Z-SC126 v1.0 With 2 FTDI modules - 3x2 - a.jpg

2019-10-22T08:53:17.705Z-SC126 v1.0 In Use - 3x2 - 3719x2479 - a.jpg

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An expandable Z180 motherboard supplied with RomWBW (including CP/M)

The motherboard kit comprises parts to build a Single Board Computer with these main features: Z180 CPU running at 18.432 MHz 512k byte RAM 512k byte Flash containing RomWBW 512k byte Flash contai...

Documentation

The documentation can be found at www.scc.me.uk

Purchasing the PCB only

The bare PCB is available here on Tindie.

Dimensions

The assembled kit is approximately 10cm (4") x 17cm (7") x 6cm (2.5"). It is supplied in a box approximately 23cm (9") x 16cm (6.5") x 2.5cm (1") weighing about 300g (0.7lbs).

Notes

This product is supplied as a kit of parts which require assembly.
It is your responsibility to pay any import duty or taxes charged by your home country.
This product is designed for hobby use and is not suitable for industrial, commercial or safety-critical applications.

Rates to United States of America

Shipping Rate	Ships From	First item	Additional items
Royal Mail: International Standard, no tracking, no signature (WW/M)	GB	$7.29	$2.54

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.00)

Documentation: (4.00)

Shipping: (4.00)

Communication: (4.00)

Ross | Nov. 3, 2019

Great little kit, exceptional documentation.

A great little through-hole kit that can be put together on the kitchen table in a couple hours or less into a working 8-bit computer that has the same retro user feel (but smaller and faster) as the early 1980's homebrew and commercial machines. The online documentation is exceptional- user's guide, circuit description, detailed assembly instructions, ROMs- all of it right there.

Richard | Oct. 28, 2019

Amazing kit, a must buy for tinkerers!

Fantastic kit, and incredibly well documented. I found this to be a "medium" skill level assembly, but if you're patient and follow the instructions you will have no issues. Check out the documentation on the website first to ensure you are comfortable assembling. Great price, worked flawlessly, would definitely purchase from seller again!

Martin | Oct. 25, 2019

Very well put together kit for Z180

The documentation is excellent, it was very easy to put together correctly. Worked on first try. I highly recommend this kit for anyone wanting to get into Z80 type RC2014 echo system of retro computers. /Martin

Randy | Oct. 25, 2019

Great kit design with great instructions for a low price

This kit was mostly easy to assemble, even with the large number of solder points, but low parts count. Some of the ground-plane solder points took a lot of time to get hot enough for solder to flow, as they nearly fully surrounded with copper. Having two vertical expansion slots plus one horizontal backplane expansion slot is fantastic and I've had great success with multiple RC2014-style cards inserted. SD card adapter and serial adapter worked without any problems and I had a fully-functional serial CP/M system in very little time. The included parts sheet is very useful and the online assembly instructions were clear and organized well, and included testing instructions along the way to verify critical points (much appreciated). Shipping took a little long (from UK to US), and there wasn't an option for a tracking number that I saw, so it was a bit of a wait, but the box was well packed and arrived in great condition. I'm looking forward to more kits from this Maker. Fantastic value for the price!

Donald | Oct. 11, 2019

Fun new dev board

I'm enjoying using the new SC126 development board based on the Z180.
My only complaint is that the manual needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb so ppl know which jumper does what. Just because the SC130 has been released recently is NO excuse to not go back and clean things up. Thanks.

Response from Stephen C Cousins | Oct. 17, 2019

Thanks for the feedback.
Jumper settings are described in the SC126 User Guide. I just checked this document and it does describe the function of each of the jumpers. I did, however, find one mistake which I have now corrected.
I have also added a link to the user guide in the section of the assembly guide where it illustrates the initial jumper settings for testing the board. Hopefully, that will make it more obvious where to find further details.

Randall | Sept. 23, 2019

Just get one!

Really cool little Z180 System. The Assembly guide is full of detail making it a very simple systems to build. Even if you soldering skills are less than perfect or your knowledge of electronics limited, I can recommend this kit.

All the documentation on Stephens web site is amazing, everything from the schematic to the firmware and software is easily acessible. References to the source for the software and for the firmware is included and makes tweaking up your SC126 very easy.

It took me roughly 3 and a half hours to build and get it running and once it was up it took little effort to flash the latest software to the flash ROM. And the old floppy drive and RC2014 floppy controller I have, worked perfectly almost out of the box, so to speak.

Great project, awesome kit and a joy to play with.

Thanks Stephen.

Wesley | Sept. 12, 2019

What a great computer

I've bought and built a lot of RC2014 stuff, and this board is just a standout. Good design, really well thought-out, and I have to appreciate how much it does with so few chips. I mean, there's a lot of chips on this board - but it essentially functions as 6 cards (CPU, Clock, RAM/ROM, Serial, Storage, RTC) in a regular RC2014 system, while still providing extra features. And only using 6 pieces of glue logic, and comes with a bunch of software ready-to-go, and did I mention it's *fast*?
Extra credit given for the documentation. Especially the provided inventory sheet, for organizing the components prior to installation. Other sellers take note!

Tuukka | Sept. 10, 2019

Great product at low price!

The kit arrived fast, and was very easy to assemble. A few hours after opening the package I was up and running the RomWBW CP/M - of course it depends on your soldering skills, but the board is easy to solder and silkscreened on both sides. I was prepared to flash the monitor roms myself, but even that was not necessary since the kit included ready to run flash chips!

Assembly instructions are very good - follow those and you just can't get it wrong. Some experimentation was needed in getting an SD card formatted and running CP/M, it was not crystal clear whether you should use the WBW or SCM monitor ROM. But carefully reading all documents resulted in success.

Even a one liner documentation comment on the ROM-drive CP/M programs would be useful. Some info can be found on RomWBW github page, and some by just running the programs. I installed an xmodem file transfer program, and only shortly after that noticed there was XM.COM already on the rom-drive.

Anyway, half the fun is finding out what you have. And with this kit, you have plenty to discover!

Response from Stephen C Cousins | Sept. 11, 2019

Thanks for the feedback. I've now added a note and a few links at the end of the assembly guide. There is information on my site about preparing an SD card etc. but I can see how you were left without guidance at the end of the assembly. Hopefully, the additional notes and links will help.

Chris | Sept. 5, 2019

This project was a pleasant one day build and worked first t

I loved building this project and it worked on first try. I also added a smbaker floppy controller to it which worked flawlessly after a re-configuration and rebuild of the romwbw software.

Jim | Sept. 5, 2019

A really nice project

This is a really well thought out and executed kit. It took just a week for it to arrive in the Southwestern United States from the U.K.

Upon opening the box, you'll find a great chart that has pictures of each part and the quantity you should have. My kit had NO missing parts. The assembly instructions are on the maker's website - and they are wonderful, step by step, clear directions. The on-board 8 LEDs were pretty, but functional - each ROM has a different startup pattern. Quite useful to know on first power up that you got it right.

Since the project contains two ROMs, the SCC Monitor and RomWBW, you can chose which to boot. RomWBW contains CP/M 2.2 and a Z-system variant so you can be up and running CP/M in no time. You'll need to source a small micro-SD card for storage, but this is pretty easy. I had a 64K card in the parts bin that worked just fine.

The board and parts are good quality. The board is silk screened on both sides to make it easy to locate and place parts. All in all, this was a pleasant project that went together quickly and worked the first time.

Karl Albert | Sept. 3, 2019

Power without the price.

If you are new to Z80/Z180 based soldering projects, this kit is not for you. The seller is offering another kit SC114 Z80 motherboard (https://www.tindie.com/products/tindiescx/sc114-z80-motherboard-kit-for-rc2014/) which is perfect for beginners. This kit is also very useful when building more modules as it will help with any troubleshooting.

The SC126 kit arrived quickly and came nicely packed in a card box, containing all the parts in neat plastic bags. With the package came also a poster showing all the included parts. Detailed assembly instructions and documentation of the kit is on the sellers home page. The system is relatively powerful compared to kits that cost far more. The heart of the system is the Z180 processor, which is basically a Z80 processor but with a lot of extra features like, a memory management unit (DMA), a counter-timer-clock (CTC) unit, and two serial ports. The system has also I2C and SPI ports, and a real-time clock. With a simple jumper, the system can run two bootloaders, the ROMWBW and SC-monitor, giving access to CP/M. Another nice feature is that is can be used to write to flash memory. And with the expandability, it is all in all a very capable system. Assembling this kit can be a challenge for beginners, but the instructions are very good and contain also troubleshooting guide.

Highly Recommended.

Michael | Aug. 30, 2019

Brilliant value SBC kit.

Good thoughtful design, well documented with instructions for testing at several stages of the assembly. High quality PCB, all components provided. Recommended for all but the absolute beginner (who might find the SC114 a good first project). Great price!

John | Aug. 27, 2019

Very Good!

I found this SC126 ver 1.0 to be a first class kit very easy to assemble and worked fist time! And the software supplied also very good!
My interest is purely nostalgic! Way back when, a local company had a problem the were paying £35.00 for a IBM formatted 8 inch disk, to solve there problem I purchased an old S100 computer with 2 X 8 inch drives and a VT100 terminal with CPM 2.2 ( lost the makers name!), I sold the formatted disks for £15.00, soon paid for the computer!
The S100 had disc’s for CPM 2.2, Wordstar, Supper Calc and others, this was my start on CPM, I found it fast and very useful, once I got used to the keyboard short cuts!
I purchased a Ampro Littel Board Z80 CPM 2.2 small PCB fits on a 5.25 inch floppy drive, very good PCB one of the best things was the ability to read lots of 5.25 inch formats.
Some years later moved to IBM PC.
I now would like to experience CPM 2.2 once more.
John Worden

Leif | Aug. 26, 2019

Great product but not for the beginner in soldering

Had been looking for a Z180 based product quite some time and was considering the RC2014 with an addon board. But then this showed up and with brexit coming it was best to act quickly.

Delivery was quick. 8 days from UK to SE of which I suspect the most was here in Sweden. It was posted the same day as ordered.

Took good time to read all the instructions available on the homepage before doing any soldering. Good instructions even if I choose to do things in a slightly different order. The only thing I miss is a bit more information on the included software. But it could be just that I have not looked close enough. There is plenty of information on ROMWBW, CP/M and ZSDOS on the internet. You just need to filter to find what's relevant and what's not for exactly this product.

The kit is complete down to the last little resistor and even includes some rubber feet. PCB was of high quality as far as I could tell. But one thing that might make this unsuitable for beginners in soldering is the thermal reliefs for pins connected to the ground plane. Some of these gave me a real problem and I consider myself as experienced.

Now, if there only was a matching graphics card to mount piggyback to this board....

Response from Stephen C Cousins | Sept. 11, 2019

Thanks for the feedback.
I think you are correct, there needs to be more information about the included software. There is quite a bit on my website, especially about the Small Computer Monitor, but I need to add more to better explain the rest. I also note the point about how this documentation needs to relate to specific products.
The issue of thermal reliefs is an interesting one, thanks. I'll try to improve this on any updates to SC126 and on future designs.