Comment by zeteo

There are thousands, probably tens of thousands of people out there who have built a 8-bit computer (usually Z80 based), according to schematics, from a microprocessor, memory chips, and a bunch of TTL chips. (I know there were at least twenty at my old school, and it was a small college.) It's one college class out of more than thirty, and by no means a replacement for college as a whole.