Hello everyone, how are each and everyone doing this fine Wednesday!!!!!!

Anyways, the name is Dustin. Amateur Radio Callsign WY9Z (it;s going to come full circle).
I am 34 years of age and I have always been keen on wanting to really learn how to program. I took BASIC (QBASIC) , JAVA, and C++ in high school, but have not done much at all outside of that classroom setting. The only thing I really remember to do is print a line of text in basic...I do know the basic idea on how to program, and the concepts behind some of the major functions (loops, if/then, etc) but I do not remember syntax in any way shape or form.
Recently I decided that I wanted to learn rust, and I still do......but I decided to slow way down and now the goal is to actually learn how a computer really works down on the hardware level and go from there. Make my own PCB's (coming back to this as well), learn circuitry,
So I did research and decided that the 6502 is where I want to begin my journey.

I recently received my Commander X16 board, and I am all in to learning this board inside and out. I want to be able to integrate the Commander X16 into something that can integrate with my radio equipment for a retro type of feel....eventually. I really love the idea of learning an 8 bit system and going back to the roots of early computing. It is something that has always interested me and I want to become an active member in the Commander X16 community.

Where should I begin? Should I jump off into the deep end and go straight for 6502 assembly? or should I go the BASIC v2 route first?
Are there any decent (in print) books that are not on the internet archive to help me with my goals? I prefer real paper over reading on a screen. Any and all suggestions to take me from beginner to intermediate to advanced will be helpful.


After learning 6502 assembly I want to continue learning other architectures, specifically ARM.

So there's my little intro.
I am a ball of clay, mold me how you see fit. give me projects, give me challenges, help me grow as I go down this journey. I will not let you down.

Welcome.


Excellent choice! 

For hardware, I will recommend the 6502 primer.  Actually, it does have some software considerations too; but I can't pass up the opportunity to recommend the excellent programming manual, "Programming the 65816 including the 6502, 65C02, and 65802" by David Eyes and Ron Lichty.  This is definitely the best 65xx programming manual available, and a must-have for every 65xx programmer!  It starts with the basics, followed by architecture, the CMOS 65c02's many improvements over the original NMOS 6502 including added instructions and addressing modes and fixing the NMOS's bugs and quirks, and then the natural progression to the 65816; a thorough tutorial, writing applications, then very detailed and diagrammed information on all 34 addressing modes, at least a page of very detailed description for each instruction, with info on every addressing mode available for that instruction, then instruction lists, tables, and groups, of all 255 active op codes, plus more.  469 pages. From Western Design Center.  (.pdf)

Any processor understands only its machine language.  Assembly language is the human-readable counterpart which has basically a 1:1 relationship to machine language, although it also has comments (hopefully), plus instructions for the assembler itself, like to tell it, "The following source code should be assembled starting at <address>".  Higher-level languages (HLLs) like BASIC, C++, etc. must be either compiled or interpreted, as the processor cannot do anything with them directly.  Compiling essentially turns the code into machine language, whereas interpreting happens at run time and requires a machine-language program that looks up what each thing in the HLL means, at run time.  The definition of, and reasons to use, assembly language are given at http://wilsonminesco.com/AssyDefense/ .

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Hello Dustin

I am here newbie too, so do not take me too seriously, but I would recommend to get (65C02) computer with some Serial - something, to be able use your PC as big monitor and good keyboard and with some Paralel - something (or Versatile), to be able make the computer to "do things" - from easy like read buttons and shine LEDs to more complex like reading SD cards, turn radio on and play music. Or whatever.

I started with comp with only Serial and so soon I felt that I need to improve that first and me being me, things started to be extra complicated. You probabely want much more easy start

GARTHWILSON have really interesting site, full of usefull things and is really helpfull, (and many others here too)

_________________
http://micro-corner.gilhad.cz/, http://8bit.gilhad.cz/6809/Expanduino/Expanduino_I.html, http://comp24.gilhad.cz/Comp24-specification.html, and many others

Thanks for the information. I actually already own a PDF copy of the book you mentioned so good to hear that I am on to a good start.

I appreciate all the information you have given me

Welcome Dustin! You are my kind of guy!

You might want to check out Ben Eater's videos on Youtube. He has a whole series where he builds a 6502 computer from scratch. Ben sometimes cuts some corners for educational purposes (there are plenty of arguments online over whether Ben is just sloppy or a didactic genius), but some of the most fruitful learning opportunities you will encounter are in trying to figure out why something that does work for Ben doesn't work for you!

_________________
"The key is not to let the hardware sense any fear." - Radical Brad

ON IT!

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