That’s my feelings, too. I want to get my hands on the parts. But it’s a cool tool if I ever want to get something really complicated going and at least seeing if it works in theory. But I think that’s at a far more advanced level than I am now.
This little 4-bit transistor computer, while not from a ready-to-go kit, seems like it should be doable without too much fuss in getting the parts.
Screw transistors. Use relays. They go clickety-clack and are awesome.
(I’m actually in the middle of building a 8-bit relay adder on some old protoboard, using designs left over by Konrad Zuse. Here’s my one-bit prototype.
If I have enough relays leftover I’ll add in some sequential logic and make a real computer.
The first computer I ever did more than type a few terminal commands on was an Altair 8800 I helped a friend build. You can still find the kits (at least, the PC board set) out there.
I remember it was quite a thrill to toggle in the NIM game and have it work.
That was a sweet machine- but the 8080A chip uses funny supply voltages.
+12, +5 and -5, I believe. The Z-80 and later were pure 5V devices, so simpler to build a working computer.
In EE 474 (IIRC) we designed and built (wire-wrap) an 8085 based computer. Basically it was a CPU, a UART, a RAM chip, and an EPROM.
The “OS” which we wrote had 4 commands - read some memory, write some memory, run a program, and something else (my partner and I wrote a Morse code sending program)