Imagesource: stockgiu on Freepik

If I had a euro for every 74HC or 74LS based 8-bit homebrew, I'd probably be not too far off from a life os privateer. It wasn't Ben Eater who first came up with the idea of building a fully functional computer based on these simple logic components, but Ben certainly gave a huge boost to the popularity of the approach with his various video series.

However, most machines you encounter on the vast expanse of the interwebs are 8-bit boxes. There's nothing wrong with that – who needs more than 8 bits, right? 🙄

But if you want to invest more of your life in your chosen hobby project, including building your own hardware, OS, assembler, a C compiler, and maybe even software on top, then a 16-bit machine might make a bit more sense.

Creator Paulo Constantino and his YouTube Channel may already be known to some. Paulo is the one who did just that, building a fully functional 16-bit machine based on more than just a handful of 74HC logic chips. The name: Sol-1.

The project is impressive. The hardware comes with two serial ports, two parallel ports, RTC, timer, IDE hard drive interface, and even a sound chip. Built on top of this is a UNIX-like operating system, an assembler matching the ISA, and a functional, but not yet fully complete C compiler. 🫨

There's also software available, and if you wish, you can directly connect to the hardware via Telnet and get started right away.

Should the apocalypse be waiting for us, Paulo is definitely one of those who will help us set everything (well at least all these digital things) up again from scratch. An impressive project indeed.