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Better yet, use wirewrapping ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap ) instead of breadboarding, so quality of the board doesn't matter. Buy a wirewrap stick (20 USD), some crappy perfboards from China (10 USD), some wires (5 USD), some long DIP headers (10 USD), and you're good to go. You may still need two or three breadboards for quick experiments. I'm currently working on a homebrew Z80 computer. I'm at the sta…
> some long DIP headers (10 USD) You're severely underestimating the cost of wire-wrap sockets. They're a low-demand item, so they're rather expensive; a few dollars for each socket is typical, and DIP40 sockets can get into the $10 range. (The sockets will cost more than most of the parts in them!)
Which is why getting them from China is a good idea. I'm building the real thing and I'm well aware of that, but I've found a very economical solution: I've found that buying single-row 40-pin sockets, like this one (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32959627004.html), is a good low-cost alternative to wirewrap sockets, it only cost you one dollar each.
It's not extremely easy to use, as you have to cut them and manually plug two rows of them to make a poor-man's DIP header, but not difficult either, and doing it is straightforward. Also, if the socket is too rough for the components you need (for example a heavy ZIP socket, or a DIP-40/64 chip), I found you could install the wirewrap DIP header to the board first, then plug a generic, cheap DIP socket on top of it, then plug your ZIF socket on top of those.
The only real disadvantage is the increased weight and height, so the solution is not very elegant, but hey, one 40-pin header only costs you one dollar, 10 dollars buy you ten 40-pin headers, which is good for ~15 chips!