I have the main unit, power, keyboard and monitor.
type computer
country UK
year 1979
os Monitor in ROM, NAS-SYS 1, MS Basic
cpu Zilog Z80A
speed 4 MHz
ram 8 KB
rom 10 KB (monitor 2 KB + Basic 8 KB)
graphic 48 x 16
colors black and white
ports serial RS323, keyboard, TV-UHF, composite video, I/O lines, TTY
The Nascom 2 — Britain’s Kit Computer Pioneer
The Nascom 2, released in 1979 by Nascom Microcomputers (a division of Ferranti), was one of the most important British home computer kit systems of the late 1970s — a single-board Z80-based computer sold in kit form that required assembly by the buyer. At £198 for the kit (or £239 assembled), it was affordable enough for serious hobbyists and early computing enthusiasts, and its open design made it highly extensible. The Nascom 2 improved significantly on the original Nascom 1, adding more memory, a better keyboard, and improved reliability.
The Kit Computer Movement
The Nascom 2 was part of the broader kit computer movement of the late 1970s, which gave technically capable enthusiasts access to personal computing capability before mass-market machines like the Sinclair ZX80 made computing genuinely accessible to the general public. Building a Nascom required soldering several hundred components onto a PCB — a process that taught builders electronics skills alongside computing knowledge. Many of Britain’s first generation of professional programmers and hardware engineers built their skills on machines like the Nascom.
BASIC and CP/M
The Nascom 2 could run Microsoft BASIC and, with sufficient memory expansion, CP/M — the dominant business operating system of the era. This gave it access to a growing library of serious business software, bridging the gap between hobbyist kit and professional tool. The machine’s extensibility through its bus connector made it popular with developers who needed a programmable platform for developing embedded systems and industrial control software.