Jaw down. As industrial systems designer I strongly admire You for very deep knowledge about digital systems. Many years ago I was built my first computer from old calculator parts based on Z-80 CPU, 1kB RAM and 2kB EPROM running built-in monitor program (simple machine code and memory editor). But I never even think about building whole computer based on MSI TTL circuits. Today I may buy whole computer integrated in one LSI chip for few bucks, and made system much easily. Again - salute for Your amazing work.

15 seconds into your video and I am having a "nostalgasm"! I designed and constructed several machine vision processors on those same Eurocard boards in the early 90s. Non contact measurement systems for the lumber and metal industries. The company was called Applied Scanning Technology. Anyone remember them? I sure do miss those days!

What is even more fascinating than you building that computer is you being able to get minix up and running.

What wonderful workmanship, Bill, and great explanations. As an old DEC employee, and electronics hacker, who had to understand this stuff back then, this really got the brain a-cooking. Amazing power and integration (even Magic!) in that box. Thank you so much for posting it!

I have "built" a computer using 3 wire wrap cards on S-100 bus, and that was using a 80186 CPU, and Intel DRAM memory controller and many other LSI chips - that was super hard already, and getting it to run CPM in a stable manner took time. I can only imagine how much harder it was to build your own CPU.

Happy 15th anniversary Magic-1!

When people say they've "built" their computer... yeah building a lego set is more complex. THIS is building a computer

Wow- just, wow.... Thank you so much for documenting this!!! What an amazing machine! It's amazing enough that it is a homebrew CPU, and it works- but, it is clearly powerful enough to run a UNIX-like operating system. And, you share it online. Incredible!!!

Truly impressive! Great work Mr. Buzbee - thanks for sharing your work.

The most deserving person I have ever subscribed to. Amazingly informative video. I learned loads, and you kept me interested throughout the entire video. I usually get bored half way through long videos, was able to watch yours start to finish.

So cool to see this video. Back around 2005 when I first got interested in building a computer from the ground up, and was wondering how practical such a thing would even be, your website was one of the first things I stumbled across. It, and the others on the webring were a wealth of information and inspiration. Thanks for sharing all this with us. Here's to 10 more years of Magic!

Awesome. Not only that you were able to produce working CPU, but also the dedication tht you put in to finish the project, and to write and maintain the software.

This is one of the coolest things I've seen. Having worked in central offices for many phone companies, I've done my fair share of wire wrapping, but have seen very few boards like these working together using single wires like a PCB. I have no problem messing up wrapping a T1. I can't imagine laying this many wires in, especially with their individual routes on each board, and connections from board to board. Reminds me of the back planes of older telephone switch boards, but even they were PCB since I've been working on them. I've recently suddenly found myself wanting to know more about how computers work, and how programming and computer hardware work together to get things done. This is pretty much the coolest example I've seen of a DIY solution to create both essentially from scratch. (I'm sure that Linux based OS took some tweaking) Thanks for sharing, and again, awesome job!

Wow! Amazing work and dedication! We built and designed a small CPU with VHDL and loaded it onto an FPGA. That was fun and educational, but this is

Thanks Bill - glad to finally get an in-depth tour. Much less hectic watching at home than trying to figure it all out at VCF.

Fantastic! Congratulations to Magic-1 for running strong for 10 years (even if it needed a new PSU!).

I've watched this several times and Magic-1 never ceases to amaze me. It is a fantastic achievement, Bill. I wish I had the patience to see a project like this through to the end!

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I'm totally filled with nostalgia now! Excellent and wonderful design, craftsmanship, and tutorial! Building your own computer architecture and writing the microcode and software. Then porting Tanenbaum's Minix... wow!

That my friend his love and dedication to design this and make it happen is overwhelming. Thousands of hours of time spent. I couldn't do it, but I got a lot of respect for the person who did. I love Electronics. technology is based on more technology. But you have to understand the technology of the old days to appreciate the new technology of today and the future thank you for sharing us I can't believe you did it my biggest breadboard project was 2 ft by 2ft I can't imagine how big that is you've got sitting there in that box amazing