Welcome! Great intro - look forward to hearing more as you make progress (or hit brick walls...)

Welcome. Glad to see another 65C816 enthusiast like me.

_________________
x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

hi guys
sorry i have found this topic just now, and here i am to tell you a bit about me

i am an italian student of electronic, but i am used to play with firmware, too
i'd like C, i am learning C++, and i am playing with (v)HDL, too

i like CPUs like 68000 and MIPS-R3, I'm an SGI fan and i love UNUX (especially IRIX)

as "electronic guy" i have realized a pretty-toy 68000 board, useless but cheap and funny
and a pretty 8051 board

now i am toying with soft core in order to realize a toy-core based on MIPS R2K and Motorola RISC 88K
i have also ordered a copy of this wonderful book

that's all folks
happy hacking

legacy =)

Nice to have you with us, legacy. I'll say "welcome" even though you've been here a while.

Nice selection of interests, btw! Looks like you have no trouble keeping yourself amused with lots of fun stuff!

-- Jeff

_________________
In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

Ive been into computers since I worked part time in my local library after high school @ 1980. We had a coin operated PET. I was hooked.
My ex wife had bought me a C64 rig as a gift, never looked back...my hardware collection has expanded...2 c64, a 128D, 2*1541, fd 2000, super cpu, ramlink, 2 monitors. It was quite a tangle of cords and cables. My first thought was to gut what I needed and rebuild into a tower...its been done succesfully, but realized I dont have the skills to pull it off
My next project then is to use an old compaq laptop, strip it down to running DOS and use vice and XU1541.
Once I get all my software converted to use in that configuration I will probably be offering the hardware for sale

Welcome! And if you like SGI-MIPS, you should visit Nekochan.

_________________
Machine room: http://www.floodgap.com/etc/machines.html

I started using computers when I was 4 in 1999; I had learned to speak in the same year. Still in 99', my first computer was something like a Compaq Presario (Windows 3.1). I had fun by just clicking things on the window manager, however I soon graduated to playing video games like Doom I/II and GTA 1/2 (and HL1 on our 32-bit PC.) My father always had plenty of computer junk (separate phone line for just the internet), and often had me take apart things ranging from power supplies to old VCRs; so I was in the right hands as far as learning is concerned. I eventually got a computer running Windows 95; despite BSoDing every hour or so, this was (and to this date) my favorite OS. I learned my way around the OS, despite not knowing what things like WinZIP or IE5 actually did.

I soon started playing online games when I was in the 5th grade, and became interested in cheating my way through the games. Video game trainers (ie memory editors) and video game bots simply astounded me because they could complete what I had been trying to do for hours on end. At age 10, I attempted to learn C/C++ in order to make a 'trainer' for MineSweeper (it simply stopped the MineSweeper timer using WriteProcessMemory.) I didn't know it back then, but I was on the verge of my largest hobby. I couldn't learn C/C++ well enough because I had the patience of a 10 yr old, however.

I started attempting to learn Java around the time I was 11 and was even more confused than I was with C/C++. Part of the reason is because the C/C++ IDE Dev-CPP was simply amazing for learning as a kid, and all of the Java IDEs were simply too complex. I also didn't understand OOP yet, which Java revolves around. I'll never, ever go back to Java for reasons I won't discuss here.

Since I was interested in cheating in video games, a offshoot of my interests lied in computer security. I soon started watching YouTube tutorials on things like DoS attacks. This soon graduated to exploits. I was watching a video on a VBulletin Denial of Service 'exploit' which could take down any forum running a specific version of VBulletin. The 'exploit' created hundreds of users on the forum per minute, thus flooding the SQL database with connections. The exploit (as were most at the time) was coded in Perl. This is where I found the first love of my life, Perl.

Since I was interested in security, I soon became interested in Linux, as Windows doesn't suffice for some security tools. I remember putting Debian on a old laptop with a 5GB HDD, and was simply astounded that there was no window manager. I didn't get very far, as I had the patience of a 12 year old!

By the time I was 13, I had created my first webpage with PHP+MySQL. It was a simple website hosted at home running XAMPP. The website was simply a photo-uploading website, which also supported user registration. It was during this time that I became more interested in topics like SQL injection and buffer overflows. MetaSploit became reliable on Windows at the time, and provided me with the best security tool I had used to date. I remember when a new exploit for SMB had been released which targeted Windows XP SP1. I was simply amazed, too much for words at what resulted. I put my brother's LAN IP in the tool and selected a reverse VNC client, and hilarity ensued. The fact that you could control someone mouse/keyboard/screen, simply by pointing this tool at a machine running vulnerable softare astounded me. I had no idea that things like this were possible.

Soon, the amount of Perl and PHP projects I had were too many to count. I soon started to realize that I was coding things that were actually useful, and not just 10 PRINT X; : GOTO 10. I attempted to learn C again, and had a much easier time that go around. I soon coded small projects which did things I didn't know were possible, like disabling Windows Task Manager via registry.


So where does the 6502 come in? Since I was interested in anything and everything computers, retro computers also fascinated me, if not more than newer computers. New computers work so fast that you can't see it doing the actual work; whereas, you can sometimes see retro computers do work, "instruction by instruction." I soon learned that the Commodore 64 was the undeniably top selling computer model of all time. I downloaded VICE and started toying around. I coded some small programs in BASIC, but they just weren't useful enough. I wanted to know how things like GEOS could run on a system with 64K and 1MHz! It was then I realized that small power means big power in the right hands. Thus, I became interested in 6502 assembly. I had coded VERY POORLY in 16-bit x86 with a small "create your own OS" guide I found on the internet using emu8086. 16-bit x86 is probably the worst assembly language to start learning with, as stuff like segments and whatnot are just.. No.

I was particularly fond of the 6502 because of the lack of instructions, which was a feature of the processor (re: price.) Division and multiplication wasn't done by the processor's die, it was done by the programmer. How do you use a 16-bit int in 8-bit assembly? How do you use an index with more than 256 bytes? How does bank switching work? I found Jim Butterfield's Machine Language for the Commodore 64 and other Commodore Computers and Jim instantly became my hero. I soon coded small routines using the PLUS/4 & C=128's monitor.

I soon graduated (or downstepped, depending on how you look at it) to using cc65 to code some programs. I was amazed that a C program could run on these machines, and I still am. The fact that you can run C code in these machines is simply mind boggling to me. Although cc65 produces some "interesting" assembly, it still works and is useful where assembly is sometimes just a bit too complicated.

For some reason, I always had problems using ANY 65xx assembler. I loved using the monitor on the machines, but monitors don't support labels or macros, and you can't save your work as easily. This was probably one of the largest challenges I faced with 65xx assembly, just getting a darn assembler to work! After trying a large number of assemblers, none of them worked, and none of them followed a syntax that I considered likable. Recently, I re-discovered cc65 and learned that ca65 was included. cl65 made compiling assembly programs SO simple, and ca65's syntax was exactly what I had been looking for all those years.

And that's how I'm here now. I'm in my Sophomore year in college, majoring in Computer Science. I am still very interested in security (I promise you I'm on the good side,) but performance is a very close second. Third is privacy in the digital age. I run a Tor exit relay (sector4) and I am a firm believer in that "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Interesting trajectory - thanks for the story. We often lament that today's apps and tablets are too much a sealed unit for anyone to learn how things work. Getting started with game cheats and the like shows that there are still cracks in the armour for the interested person to get inside and see how things work, and change them, and learn enough to be able to create new things.

Hi Dvorak, and welcome. Fascinating story -- and I'm amazed that the C64 still has that pull. I'm curious, if you couldn't find an assembler you liked, did you ever consider writing your own?

I was hoping I wasn't too scatterbrained when I wrote that. I don't really think that tablets, smartphones etc are really as great of a learning tool as everyone claims they are as well. I seriously can't tell you how mad I was when they started to become popular, but I guess we all saw it coming. (Have you ever seen someone try to take a picture with a tablet? )

Oh, and did I mention most of them use Java on top of a Linux system? Eek. A sandbox(?) (Android) on top of a sandbox (Java.) IMO, a performance nightmare. I understand portability, but isn't C also 'portable' (with exception to drivers)? There aren't cracks in the armor, as you say, thus reducing learning opportunities. A kid's first programming experience will likely be a Android game with the ultra-high-level Android API, not a lower level API which reveals the true internals of the system.

Hopefully I didn't get too political but sometimes you just can't resist, but I'm sure many (if not most) of the members here have similar feelings.


I wouldn't say I was content and knowledgeable enough to build an assembler until around now. Unlike many programmers, I have a 'thing' with reinventing the wheel (re: performance obsession), so this could very well be a future project. Until then, ca65 is my idea of a perfect assembler.

Good evening to you out there interested in that old but historically unusually long living micro.
I used to work as a test repair technician on Oki dot matrix printers during the first days of the BBC, here in the UK.
I have never got to grips with programing, due to mild dyslexia.
But I am attracted to the 6502 as it just carries on being used.

Another reason that I want to learn about it, is that there could be a planet wide electromagnetic pulse, that could
leave all electronics faulty.
The source of the pulse could be from a number of astronomical sources, such as the compass poles flipping.
But the first need would be law, order, food and medical, all of which could need a basic type of computer connected
via amateur radio shortwave, at the most least of amateur interest.
The design and components could be buried in the wet earth, in a time capsule, of small size with its metal casing in good anti static plastic bags.

I got the idea from a dream I had about 23 years ago and from studying the Famine of God's word in the Bible.
Especially at Amos 8:9 to 11.
I am more interested in it recently due to the amount of electronic Bibles.
My first electronic Bible was Bill Mensch's Franklin electronic book of the New International Version.
I still have it and think it could have also got in it a 65816.

I have witnessed electronics change in front of me over the years, I have wondered if something could cause a massive electronic failure.
I started work in 1979 as a test and repair technician on Lifeboat radios and Ship Bridge Watch receivers, and later saw evolve Printers and the Internet.
My Dad wrote a book in the 70's called "Ideas for Art teachers", that initially emphasised the ability to print, in several ways, diagrams and symbols.
Rather than search with negative suspicions of human nations, the possible causes of electronic failure, I with relief, pursue how God might make it happen.
By focusing on Gods planned disaster, I thought it would be better than being suspicious of possible damage from civil war or some sour think locally.
A fairly well known quote is "I can teach a man to sail, I can't teach him why" shows how a reason why to study the 6502 could help.

A fundamental concern for the organisation of people, after this or any disaster is money!
Never before has man had so little amount of coins, to organise lifes matters, as the drive to go paperless is moving on.
Plus the electronic money is in so much controversy in bank and national currency collapse, as people are still learning how to insure it and support it.
Plus the technology is not constant in its design and in its engineering access or access to the manufacturing availability of its components.

Hello my name is Neil and I love the 6502,

When I was about 7 ( round about 1983) my mum and dad got the family an Atari 2600. The graphics and sound were terrible but we didn't know that at the time and it was like something magical out of another world. I have a memory of my mum and I clocking the score in Pac-Man by handing the joystick to each other when our hands began to ache from chasing cherries, munching dots and avoiding ghosts.

At primary school we had a forward-thinking head master who got a Black-box Link 480Z and a rubber-keyed 48K Spectrum years before other schools had computers. I can't remember which of those two machines had the game where we had to pretend to be Vikings invading England. We had to decide where to land, where to build villages and whether to go sacking monasteries or not. I do remember drawing a circle in Logo on the 480Z when everyone else was in the playground during play time. Looking back, the head master must have been pleased that someone was using the machines. Sadly that head master is no longer with us and I never went back to say thank-you to him for being so influential although his enthusiasm for computers lives on. I have a memory of "boot" being some sort of magical thing that I didn't understand. It didn't even occur to me that it was something that we do when the computer is first turned on; It was just occult.

Then one day, when I came home from school, I was told not to look in the dining room. When I looked there was a curvy professional-looking slate grey box with an built-in keyboard on the dining room table. It was sitting beside its cables and other smaller devices. It was a Commodore 16 ( not 116 or Plus/4). When my parents noticed that I had looked, they weren't upset and I think that because I had seen it they made the decision to keep it ( It had been inherited and looking back they were probably discussing what to do with it). I have fond memories of my parents sitting on the floor surrounded by early copies of INPUT magazine typing in games from books by Melbourne House and wondering why they wouldn't work sometimes. Later on I would correct the errors in the listing as I typed them in. Mum and I played Punchy while dad was the only one who could actually complete Flight Path 737 without crashing in to the mountains. Classic Adventure, Roller Kong, Skramble, Thrust and Xzap were the other games of the day, which came on C90 cassette tapes and sold for £1.99 at the local supermarket.

Later on my mum bought a second-hand VIC-20 because it came with a lot of games. I knew from a friend at school that there was such a thing as a Commodore 16 Plus/4 and somehow I thought that the VIC-20 would be compatible on the basis that 16 + 4 = 20. Fuzzy young thinking. Little did I know that the VIC-20 pre-dated the Commodore 16. Rockman, Moons of Jupiter, Jetpac and Gorf were played a lot although I don't think we spent much time in BASIC on the VIC-20 and its chronically narrow 22-column text mode.

At high school we used to disconnect 80186-based RM Nimbus machines from the 10-base2 network so that we could boot from our coveted floppy disks and play a text-mode platform game called NONAME. The head of IT was worried that we were gaining unauthorised access to the network, which looking back was amazing that he was so security conscious back then when even today security is considered as an afterthought if at all by so many. He was put at ease when we explained that we were just playing games although he probably thought that we were cheeky monkeys. The deputy head teacher caught me red-handed with paper spewing out of the dot-matrix printer saying "Mike is a dickhead" over and over again, which wasn't ideal as his name was Mike. He asked me if I thought that this was an appropriate use of school resources but he was more interested in the program that I wrote to make it happen. The program has asked for an input string before printing it over and over and a friend of mine called Justin had typed in the dickhead line, pressed Enter and then run off. Mike was the other friend who also scarpered. The deputy head was known as a really tough teacher. I'd never seen him be gentle or forgiving and so I look back on his interest as a turning point in my life.

While I was at high school we got a Commodore 64C. I was always jealous of the Amiga graphics in Zzap! magazine but the C64 was just good enough that I love playing the games to this day. The C64 also marked my first real programming. There was a BASIC example that moved a balloon sprite around the screen. I was gobsmacked that it was possible to make such things happen sitting on the floor in my bedroom. BASIC was pretty slow though compared to the BASIC on the early PCs at school. The ( in retrospect) amazing librarian at my school had seen fit to acquire a book on both 6502 ( and, boo, hiss, Z80) assembly language so that when I came looking for information, it was already there. That librarian's foresight to carry books in 1987 on such an arcane subject in a secondary school that was in the middle of nowhere was an important step on my journey. I paid to photocopy hundreds of pages of that book after it was long overdue and I had been gently asked for it back. After I tired of inscrutable DATA statements I bought a Final Cartridge that I quickly hocked off to a school mate to buy an Action Replay IV that was much better suited to assembly language programming. We only had a 1530 C2N datassette for storage because disc drives were very expensive and much of my work is lost although I remember doing raster splits, a sprite multiplexer, colour plexing and the beginnings of a platform game with a snail as the protagonist. The articles in Zzap! by John and Steve Rowlands while they were writing Creatures were the source of much knowledge.

When my dad saw how much effort I was putting in to programming and pixeling he encouraged me to get a "real" computer. I considered a C128 and even an Amiga but having been burned by the VIC-20 experience I saw that those platforms were in decline and opted for a 25 MHz Harris 80286 with 1 MB of RAM and 20 MB hard disc drive. The VGA card had 256 K of video RAM and with MCGA mode 13h ( 320 x 200 @ 256 colours from a palette of 262,144 in a linear frame buffer) I was in heaven, free of the heavy restrictions on colour of the C64. I taught myself 8086 assembly by disassembling random parts of memory and guessing what the mnemonics did based on my experience with the 6502. Later on I was pleased with my gouraud shader that showed a rotating dodecahedron at 150 fps ( usually vsync'd to 60 fps) by preparing four pixels at once in cache and writing them to video RAM in a single 32-bit write ( I had a 486 by then). Friends were impressed because we were getting 0.5 fps flat shaded cubes on the computers at school. But then the 3Dfx Voodoo happened and software 3D engines went the way of the dodo.

After spending so much time wanting to make games, I decided that I should think of my career and would get in to what I thought of as "network" programming, although I hadn't yet been exposed to the Internet so that was a little prescient looking back. After college I went to work for investment banks, eventually as a consultant. Nowadays I use Ruby on Rails and run a domain name registrar.

I had almost forgotten about the 6502 until a friend challenged me to see who could make the best C64 game by the end of 2014. No finished games eventuated but I challenged him back to see who could make the best 6502 SBC by the end of 2015.

Having worked with Z80, 68000, 80x86, ARM and AVR assembly languages alongside many popular high-level languages, I find the 6502 beautiful in its elegance. As a thought experiment I designed my own minimal ISA. Aside from decimal mode what I came up with was basically the 6502 ISA.

My formal training is in software not electronics engineering so please be patient with me if I make elementary mistakes or ask obvious questions. I was 38 before I understood why writing 00 to the VIC-II bank register would select bank#3 rather than 0.

Sorry for the long post. I began writing and then it flooded out. Maybe my descendents will find grandad's rant and have a good laugh.

Welcome, unclouded. Thanks for the chronology, and keep us posted on your SBC project. (But not here, please; open a new thread.)

"Scarpered"??? What a delightfully colorful expression! I'm guessing in this case it means, "ran off"?

-- Jeff

_________________
In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

Welcome to our 6502 world. In which corner of the planet are you located?

_________________
x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Well, 'scarpered' is British.. (great expression, I'm used to see it from British English books that I read. The word originally came from Italian, probably).

Great introduction story by the way!

-Tor