Just wanted to add that there is "a homebrew computer ring" project [1] and you will be surprised how many ideas for DIY computers you can find there.

(I also made a two-breadboard CPU with ~5 instructions myself but had yet no time to finish the software)

[1] https://www.homebrewcpuring.org/

I kinda judge YouTube channel by the inverse of the speed I need to scale down/up.

Ben Eater is always among the top 10.

It is a rite of passage, as electronics wizards say. I remember at least another good example shared in the wild: https://github.com/vascofazza/8bit-cpu

RE "....Cutting and laying out wires are some of the most tedious and frustrating process....." I would be investigating to use wire wrap. I built some circuits using wire wrap, back in late 70s ,early 80s. I designed and built a circuit on a wire wrap prototype board to put a 68008 DIL chip on the Apple II bus. I'm not sure of the cost of wire wrap parts now - may be quite expensive , the special wire wrap sockets etc .....

Check this yt channel out: https://youtu.be/ENlcDdyUHC8?si=cq7zob46DX-oRRaj

If figuring out how computers work starting all the way from logic gates interests you, but you don’t want to start by ordering parts and soldering, check out the ”game” Turing Complete.

Of course it’s not the same thing as actually building the electronics! But it can be a nice introduction.

I tried something similar when in college. Built a 8bit GPU on a breadboard, i don't remember all the details now, but it was such a fun project.[1]

[1] https://nabraj.com/blog/8-bit-gpu/

I'm a big fan of all the builds and videos Ben Eater puts together, I've learned more watching his demos than a couple of years doing hardware design in college.

Love me some "Ben Eater does this and crushes it"