Building your own computer has many possible paths. One can fabricate their own Z80 or MOS 6502 computers and then run a period correct OS. Or a person could start from scratch as [James Stanley] did.
How many of us can say, hand on heart, that we haven’t at one point been tempted to turn a room in our home into, say, the Batcave, the U.S.S. Enterprise bridge, or some other bit of fanboy nerdery ...