Stephen C Cousins

2,911 orders since Sep 20, 2018

Stowmarket, Suffolk, United Kingdom

Ships from United Kingdom.

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.96)

Documentation: (4.89)

Shipping: (4.89)

Communication: (4.91)

All Reviews

Mendel | June 2, 2023

A superbly engineered kit

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

This is the second of the Stephen Cousins RC2014 motherboard kits I've built. A very nice board, though I prefer the SC130 for its compactness and elegance. Quite a number of build options and versatile for its inclusion of switchable boot ROMs.

I do have a couple of minor quibbles. I don't much care for the bent pin headers protruding over the side of the board, though the customer can substitute straight heads (this requires some planning, in order to avoid blocking the female headers at the ports). And, in the otherwise excellent documentation, one of the final tests requires measuring voltage at a couple of pins of the Z180 socket, but with no pin diagram (68 pins to choose from!). Please add a pin diagram / pictorial to the documentation, Stephen.

I would not recommend this kit to the beginning kit builder, as is of medium+ complexity, with many solder joints. Start with something simpler, such as the SC114, to get some experience soldering and kit building. Or, better yet, start with a very simple and cheap kit, say a 555 LED flasher, with only a few solder joints, and practice, practice, practice soldering. Cold solder joints and bridges are the most common cause of kit failure.

Marginal notation: It would be nice to have a plug-in video board, composite video, VGA, or even HDMI. For that matter, why don't I wish for a keyboard interface?

Summary: An excellent kit for anyone into Z80 or CP/M programming at a very reasonable price.

Ed | July 1, 2022

It's not a computer until it has a lot of flashing lights on

For SC506 Digital I/O Card Kit for Z50Bus

Another very nice kit, up to the usual high standard. Knocking a point off because I'd have preferred right-angle LEDs like the other SC500 kits, and there are sixteen of them here that need their leads carefully bending and lining up neatly.

Joseph | Dec. 3, 2021

Buy this, build this, have all the fun.

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

First off, the quality and attention to detail of this kit is excellent. The board is of excellent quality, and all the components are carefully packaged. The inventory of parts was perfect- Nothing missing or damaged. The illustrated color sheet included in the package makes an initial inventory of the parts a snap.

Assembling the kit was a pleasure. I took my time and double checked each detail as I went along. Though I have an electronics background and experience building many kits, I followed the assembly guide step by step. The clearly silkscreened board made component placement a breeze. Everything worked perfectly on first power-up.

This is an excellent kit that's fun to assemble. The final product is a tiny, fast and genuinely useful computer.

I have to say, the inclusion of an enclosure on this project helps to make this little jewel a lot more useful. Nearly all the small computer kits here on Tindie and elsewhere could take a lesson here. I'm not afraid to take this with me and share it with friends- I just toss it in a little zip case, and away we go. Having it in a small, sturdy and attractive case really adds shine to this little gem!

That being said, this is not a kit for a beginner. The excellent instructions have everything the experienced tech needs to build this little treasure with no trouble. But the close fit of the components requires at least intermediate soldering skills and careful attention to detail, and the PLCC socket can be a little tricky. The instructions, though very well written, lack a lot of information that would help the beginner- Static precautions, for instance, are never mentioned. Hints like bending the leads inward on the DIP components to help put them in their sockets, and more detail on hooking up the FTDI adapter would really help the newer kit builder.

All in all, I highly recommend this excellent kit. You'll end up with a fast little CP/M (or Z-System or FORTH or ROM BASIC) computer that you can slip in a backpack and enjoy anywhere!

Christian | July 28, 2021

Easy assembly, quick start for the RC2014 ecosystem.

For SC114 RCBus-40pin Z80 SBC/Motherboard Kit

The SC114 is a single board computer based on the Z80 CPU. It's got onboard RAM, ROM (with a simple monitor and BASIC), reset circuitry, address decoder, and a simple 9600 baud TTL serial port. The assembly took me under an hour, and was relatively painless. The photographic BOM included with the board was sufficient to get up and running, but there's a full step-by-step assembly guide on the SCC website. Once I had everything soldered and socketed, PuTTY connected to the serial port on the first try. Type HELP from there!

Stephen was a great merchant, he was willing to adjust my order to include a different peripheral after I placed my order. Plus, the website really is comprehensive. The package arrived in a very slim (no extraneous packaging) box and got to the US from the UK in record time. I'll definitely be trying out a Z180 from Stephen some day.

The only thing keeping me from giving this five stars across the board - the motherboard is powered only via the TTL serial port or through an RC2014 expansion card port. Stephen does sell a power module, I'll probably order one.

Agustin | July 25, 2021

Excellent kit

For SC114 RCBus-40pin Z80 SBC/Motherboard Kit

Very good quality of the components, I assembled it and it worked at first without problems. The documentation on Stephen's page is excellent.
I added a Serial I / O module and CF Storage # 61 to run CPM and it works fine.

Agustin | July 25, 2021

Excellent kit, simple and very useful.

For SC129 Digital I/O Module Kit for RC2014

Very good quality of the components, I assembled it and it worked at first without problems. the documentation on Stephen's page is excellent.

David | July 11, 2021

Quite happy with it.

For SC140 Z180 Processor Card Kit for Z50Bus

I'm a bit blown away by how capable this is out-of-box. I am using kits like this one to build my own tools, and I don't really expect a tremendous amount of utility from the included operating systems on most of them, but I can already tell that the included software is going to prove invaluable in learning how to develop for 8-bit systems.

It gives you plenty of execution environments to get started with; including Basic, Forth, CP/M and it even comes with a nice game.

I really like how compact this board is.

The documentation is robust and complete. Kit is neatly packed and and well labelled.

I would have liked an option to pay more for tracking. Shipping to the U.S. took a long time, as warned, and I would have felt better if I could have had a tracking number; regardless my package arrived in perfect condition when it did get here.

Merchant was able to answer technical questions I had about the peripheral ecosystem. Merchant's blog is a tremendously rich source of knowledge. Highly recommended.

Marian | June 20, 2021

very good, works great!

For SC114 RCBus-40pin Z80 SBC/Motherboard Kit

I received this board almost simultaneously with a Z80-MBC2 board: while SC114 worked flawlessly, Z80-MBC2 did not (error transferring program), so I would rather recommend this board to any other Z80 computer version!

I do not know what the above stars really mean, especially "Communication"? communication with S. Cousins (none, because not needed) or communication between my computer and the board? (OK)

Douglas | March 26, 2021

sc203 is just the right amount of computer

For SC203 RCBus Modular Z180 Computer Kit

The kit was complete and easy to build, everything fired-up perfectly the first time. Since I was developing a "console-only" CP/M (CP/NET) solution, this minimal computer was perfect.

Donald | March 15, 2021

The SC128 Modular Backplane Kit for Z50Bus works well

For SC128 Modular Backplane Kit for Z50Bus

The SC128 Modular Backplane Kit for Z50Bus was relatively easy to assemble. A few of the small pads take a bit extra heating when soldering. Overall the Modular Backplane Kit functions as expected.

Kurt | March 12, 2021

SC203 Kit

For SC203 RCBus Modular Z180 Computer Kit

Today I received the SC203 kit.
It all works very well, which I did after the first
Applications can say.
The boards are superbly made.
It took me 4 hours to assemble.

The disadvantage for me is that deliveries from England have become around 20% more expensive.
Brexit is to blame?

Kurt

Roger | March 8, 2021

Great kit, both to build and use

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

Excellent construction instructions and documentation about the card.
Had a wonderful and relaxing time building it, and then starting to play with it.
Very happy with it.

Carsten | Feb. 25, 2021

Works great, but not with the ROM that comes with RC2014 Pro

For SC110 Serial and Timer Kit for RC2014

I ordered this board as a kit to substitute the SIO/2 board in my RC2014 Pro. I wanted a timer in my machine and the SC110 offers the CTC chip for that.
The build was easy, the kit quality is great but it looks like the software in the Pro ROM has some timing issues. The ROM works together with the SIO/2 board, but not in all slots. The SC110 board does send correct characters to the terminal but the firmware is not able to receive from the SC110 module. No problems with RomWBW*, though, so I think it‘s a software bug of the RC2014 Pro.
There is great documentation with example code and lots of other interesting stuff on Stephen C Cousin‘s web site.

* The CTC driver of RomWBW needs the output of timer channel 3 to be connected to the clock input of timer channel 4 in order to generate the 50Hz signal for the HBIOS timer tick. I connected pin 9 to pin 20 of the CTC on the board in order to achieve that.

Terry | Feb. 3, 2021

Another wonderful kit!

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

The kit was packaged great. It was put together in almost no time at all, and works great! I previously built an RC2014, SC126, and SC131, they are a joy to build and fun to use. I also have some S100 machines and other SBCs, these SC-series boards are a super edition to my stuff!
Terry, N4TLF (formally WB4JFI)

James | Jan. 19, 2021

Quality product

For SC127 Compact Flash Interface Kit for Z50Bus

This is a very simple design, with little to go wrong. Quality board, quality parts. Note that this won't work with the SC126 SBC or any other RC2014 system - it's made for the Z50 bus. I (wrongly) assumed that Z50 was a subset of RC2014, but it's not. My fault for not reading more carefully. I suppose one could fashion an adapter, but it would be kludgy. Anyway, don't hesitate to buy this if you have a Z50 board/system - I just wanted to note my mistake in case anyone else is confused about Z50 vs. RC2014.

James | Jan. 19, 2021

Great kit!

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

This was a very easy kit to put together with clear instructions. I had it assembled in an hour and a half, and it worked the first time! The board is silkscreened on BOTH sides and you could put it together from that information alone. The more in-depth operational info is on Stephen's website - everything is there, if a little scattered. It took a month to ship from the UK to the USA - I was starting to worry, but it finally arrived in good shape.

Pavel | Jan. 16, 2021

Completely great product

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

Order without problems. Shipping was very fast (to Czechia). SC126 is very good product - hardware is smart designed and software is excellent (RomWBW). Documentacion is also very good, I would invite user manual in PDF format. Thanks to all for my silicon honey.

Michael | Jan. 13, 2021

Great hardware kit - very, very complete

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

Easy and simple build, documentation was fair and aimed at people with little experience. Would have been nice to have a summary of all the IO addresses in the documentation. Otherwise, a good kit.

A | Jan. 2, 2021

A brilliant all in one kit for beginers or lazy old hands ..

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

I have been tinkering with old tech for decades and always wanted a simple easy to use cpm machine with enough expansion to let me mess around. I decided to go with a semi retro solution i.e. not a purist old z80 design just to get my feet wet. Well it was worth it. It took an hour and a half one evening and it was up and running. The kit is idiot proof. It even included rubber feet for the PCB so you can power it up on a table surface without risking scratching your dining room table (in my case). The documentation is clear and the creator totally responsive. I am already planning to expand it further. If you want to get a CPM beast up and running in under 2 hours... this kit is totally for you.

Clyde | Nov. 16, 2020

A well-priced, quality board with some handy features.

For SC112 Modular Backplane Kit for RC2014

The SC112 backplane is of good quality. I like the full double row sockets. The horizontally mounted expansion socket at the end of the board is very useful for troubleshooting. The troublesome board can be plugged in there with the component side up for easy access with scope probes or logic analyzer probes. I would advise not installing the jumper headers until you need them. A full length, densely populated board may touch the headers when plugged in with unpredictable results. The 5 volt and ground buss traces are extra wide. If you don't need the voltage regulator footprint on the RC2014 Backplane Pro, you can buy an SC112 and an SC113 extension and get 12 slots for about half the cost of the Backplane Pro.

Eric | Nov. 9, 2020

Awesome product and excellent communication.

For SC111 RCBus Z180 CPU Module Kit

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!!!

Eric | Nov. 9, 2020

Awesome product and excellent communication.

For SC119 RCBus Z180 Memory Module Kit

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.

Angus | Oct. 27, 2020

Excellent delivery considering the pandemic

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

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

The only Z80 board you need!

For SC108 Z80 Processor Module Kit for RC2014

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

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

Not used it yet, but looks the goods.

For SC115 Breakout Module Kit for RC2014

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.

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 a Treat! Highly Recommended

For SC129 Digital I/O Module Kit for RC2014

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.

José Ángel | Sept. 25, 2020

GOOD CHOICE.

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

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.

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

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,

Christopher | Aug. 2, 2020

Excellent board!

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

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!

John | June 13, 2020

Something to Aspire To

For SC126 RCBus Z180 SBC/Motherboard Kit

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.

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