It started with the keyboard, found on TradeMe.  Why on earth is the header mounted on the top?

That required some piggy-backing with right-angled headers, to make something that would connect directly to the Uno sockets.  By attaching two strips on opposite sides of the pins I was able to straddle the Gap of Doom

The KENBAKless operates in exactly the same way as the original Kenbakuino. 

There is an extra button, I labelled it "sys" and it's used to cycle the LED colours, change their brightness and also enter Octal mode. By default input is binary, pressing the button labelled 'n' toggles the nth bit.  In Octal mode it rolls in from the right the binary value of the Octal digit.

There are four extra LEDs on the "control" strip.  One is used to indicate Octal mode.

There's a short video:

The experiment is over, I doubt that I will pursue this further to a polished enclosure etc.