This 8-bit computer plans to run flight sim and generates a 'pleasant homely aroma' by burning dust off 1950s vacuum tubes — oh, and it can explode at any time
460 tubes, roughly 1 kW of heating power, and a fire extinguisher on standby
by https://www.techradar.com/author/rahim-amir · TechRadarNews By Rahim Amir Published 18 September 2026
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- Retired UK hobbyist builds 8-bit computer from 460 recycled tubes, all wired as NOR gates, on a 190 x 130 cm wall panel
- The machine is expected to run a flight simulator program once completely finished, but the builder is currently working on the status system that would allow it to do so
- Previous versions of the machine have gone 'bang' twice, as noted by the tinkerer, prompting him to keep a fire extinguisher handy for his experiment
A retired hobbyist in the UK who identifies himself only as Mike has hung an 8-bit computer built from 460 recycled vacuum tubes on a brick wall in his home, and over the past ten days, it has seen widespread press coverage.
The machine is real, the glow is real, the smell is real, and the accompanying documentation is unusually candid and detailed for what is essentially a DIY project.
The tinkerer is currently trying to use the computer to run a flight simulator he has already coded but has yet to get the hardware into a state where it can run.
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Soviet-era tech meets a hobbyist and a computer is born
Mike's technical write-up makes it clear that we have a well-designed, well-researched 8-bit computer that packs 920 triodes into 460 Soviet-designed 6N3P double triodes, each wired as an identical NOR gate.
The registers, counters, 8-bit arithmetic logic unit, ring-oscillator clock, and small tube RAM are all assembled from that single building block, an approach Hackaday traces to the Apollo Guidance Computer.
The tubes sit on 46 ten-tube plug-in boards across five backplanes on a 190 by 130 cm acrylic panel that weighs roughly 20 kg. The instruction set supports 16 operations; the ALU adds, XNOR, increment, NOT, and carry, and a carry register lets the 8-bit machine chain 16-, 32-, 64-, and even 128-bit arithmetic, slowly.
However, there is no pipeline: six fetch cycles, one execute, one unused, and this is intentional, with Mike saying that the timing logic implemented is a bit too complex compared to the rest of the system.
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