The N8VEM Home Brew Computer Project

The N8VEM Single Board Computer (SBC) is a home brew Z80 small computer project. It is made in the style of vintage computers of the mid to late 1970's and early 1980's using a mix of classic and modern technologies. 

Its purpose is to entertain through education.  It is intended to be used to teach and promote principles of electronic computer design.  It is a solely non-profit educational project and is not intended for any commercial application.  The N8VEM SBC and related peripherals would be ideal as a school project or could be used to teach basic computer hardware and software principles.

The web site is a repository of information, documentation, and files pertaining to the N8VEM Home Brew Computer Project.  It is intended to be the canonical place for this information.

Low cost development and assembly by hobbyist amateurs is encouraged by using common tools such as 25 watt soldering iron, VOM, logic probe (optional), and common hand tools.  An oscilloscope is recommended but not required.  Some basic electronic skills are good but the PCBs are designed for relative beginners.

For more details, see the Design Overview page.  There is a discussion forum also, see the N8VEM Google Group also known as the N8VEM mailing list.  If you need to reach someone please send me an email at LYNCHAJ@YAHOO.COM

There are nine Eurocard (160 x 100 mm) PCBs available; the N8VEM SBC, the ECB backplane, the ECB bus monitor, the ECB prototyping board, the Disk IO board, the Zilog Peripherals board, the Video Display Board, PropIO, and SCG.

The three 6809 standalone computer boards available in the Eurocard (160 x 100 mm) format; the 6809 host processor, the 6809 IO mezzanine, and the 6809 bus bridge.  All Eurocard ECB format PCBs are $20 plus shipping which is $2 per board in the US and typically $5 per board overseas.

N8VEM builders are working on several projects.  Here are some underway at the moment; ECB SBC-188, ECB RAM-Floppy, ECB Cassette Interface, and ECB uPD7220 graphics board. These boards are not commonly available and are in various states of development, build, test, and/or prototyping.  Please contact the mailing list for more information.

There are four "mini-board" PCBs available; Juha SD, PPIDE, ECB to Z80 socket shim, and AT2XTKBD.  All mini-board PCBs are $5 plus shipping which is $1 per board in the US and typically $3 per board overseas.

There are XT-IDE PCBs available which are $12 plus shipping which is $2 per board in the US and typically $5 per board overseas.

In addition, there are S-100 products being developed.  An S-100 backplane ($32 each) PCB and an S-100 regular prototyping board ($25 each) are complete, although currently on wait list status.  In addition, John Monahan from S100Computers.com and the N8VEM project have made several S-100 boards such as the S-100 buffered prototyping board, S-100 IDE, S-100 parallel ASCII keyboard, and S-100 4MB SRAM board.  Several more are in work at present such as the S-100 System Monitor Board, S-100 EPROM, S-100 PIC/RTC, S-100 Bus Extender, S-100 Z80 CPU, and S-100 IO board.  The S-100 boards are available rather sporadically so please contact me to be placed on the special email distribution list for S-100 development.  The plan is to make a completely free (as in speech) and open S-100 system which is only partially complete at the moment.

Please see the sidebar for links to more information and also the folders for related photos and files on the various N8VEM components.  Schematics, parts lists, PCB layout, software, and various forms of documentation are available here or on request. 

If you are interested in purchasing PCBs to make your own N8VEM system please contact LYNCHAJ@YAHOO.COM 

Combining multiple PCBs in an order will reduce shipping charges based on weight.  Special arrangements are available for groups and/or institutional educational purposes.  Please email for details.

See also the Sidebar to the right for a table of contents.