And finally most importantly. Enjoy while building it and do not give up. How do You think Erik got his experience - by purchasing readily built kits?

Correct, there were none in those days. Had there been I would have.

What you suggest (building a board without having made something work on a purchased devboard first) is pure torture, you have no idea if it is the code or the hardware that causes whatever. I tend to recall that some of my missing hair got pulled just for that reason

This is not a matter of "hardware design is irrelevant", by no means, it is a matter of gaining confidence in one area before tackling the next.

crawl ... walk ... run

Erik