Wow! So many impressive biographies here, I am not sure I should post my humble self.
Well, I want to introduce myself before I start posting on this forum, so here goes.
I was born... no, I am just kidding
. I will start a bit later:
My interest in computers started around the time I was at 7th grade (elementary school in Poland was 8 grade at the time). Unfortunately, to own a computer in 1982-83 in Poland was not that easy. First of all, the home computer industry in Poland was non-existent. Socialistic economy did not create good environment for creating commercial opportunities for merchants either (hence it was close to impossible to buy western technology in Polish local electronic store). Therefore all the personal computers were privately imported and sold on the flea market in the capital city of Warsaw. To own Commodore 64 with 1541 drive, you had to pay 300,000 zloty cash. My father's 10 year salary. ZX Spectrum was 120,000. ZX 81 - 10,000. I was young and enthusiastic, but I understood that I had no chance of acquiring my own hardware at the time. Therefore I pursued my interest on the abstract level and started to collect as much literature as I could to learn about computers and programming in BASIC. By the time I was in 4th grade at high school, I had access to Commodore 64 and Plus 4. I was the only one in class that knew what is that beast called personal or home computer and I could key in simple BASIC program to the computer just from the top of my head (calculator with 4 operations) which worked. This impressed my electronics class teacher (I went to technical grade high school). I was pronounced the head of the computer club at school. I still did not know at the time how the microprocessor worked. I did not even care what kind of CPU was inside C64. I just wanted to program them computers in high level languages like BASIC, Logo, Forth or Pascal. I wanted to create beautiful structurally written programs that would perform calculations, manage data bases or play games.
I graduated from high school. My final thesis was a program for Commodore Plus 4 written in BASIC - a catalog of 74 series IC-s. Then I went to work as a communications company technician and my computer interest was put aside for about 2 years. After 2 years I went to technical university and started graduate program to become electrical engineer. I later took specialization in automatic control and computer science. At college I learned about micro controllers, had access to my 1st PC compatible computers and learned programming in Pascal, LISP and C. The micro controllers class and learning about 8051 got me interested in the idea of building my own computer. Some of my friends built their own SBC-s with 8051 micro controller identical to the one we used in class to help them in their studies. Due to my genetically inherited laziness, I did not pursue similar interests (too much effort) and I remained on abstract level using Keil software suite (they had excellent emulator) to emulate any imaginary hardware based on 8051 uC and wrote programs to control it. I remember my final project was a clock with 100 year calendar running on our 8051 development board. Teacher tested it thoroughly against idiot-proof requirements and such and it passed with flying colors. Another idea I had was 8051 controlled room lighting conditions adjusting unit. It would either close or open electric motor controlled windows blinds and also regulate the electric lighting in the room to keep optimal lighting conditions. All in simulator, never built any hardware model or prototype (but one day I will). I was proud to be at the top of the micro controller class. For the reasons unknown to me, most of my peers hated the subject.
I could not afford my own PC while in college, but, lo and behold, local electronic store in my town was still selling new Commodore 64 computers in 1992. I bought one with datasette unit (they did not carry 1541s). This is when my obsession with 6502 really took off. By the end of 1995 I was programming in machine code and Forth and building some electronic toys attached to C64's ports (mostly blinking lights, 7-segment displays and such stuff).
Due to multiple things happening in my life at the time, like university graduation, marriage, new job, then travel to U.S.A. to pursue career opportunities, I did not have much time any more for any time consuming hobbies. I boxed my C64 (at the time I started to work I could afford a PC, as well as I bought 2 second hand commodore disk drives) and electronic junk, stored at my wife's mother place in closet and prepared to leave for U.S.A. Here I work as a computer programmer for health care industry. The software we write is heavily controlled by FDA regulations and mostly DB management (Yaaawn! Booring!). Some time in the middle of 2000-s I got interested in robot building with 2 of my workmates and we bought iRobot Create and Qwerk hobby platforms but we lacked any good ideas for the robot. My friends lost interest soon and I am now in possession of a robot, or rather useless good for nothing monstrosity I call Sir Terk Bot. I play with it from time to time, try to teach it how to follow object or a line, simple non-innovative stuff really, just for fun. I guess I lack the talent for innovation. Oh well. What was interesting about qwerk controller was that it was a self contained ARM based Linux computer with all the servo, motor and A/D electronic already on board. Very convenient. The software actually runs on the PC (there are JAVA, C++ and C# API-s in existence) and controls the robot over the network (WiFi connectivity is available with attached USB dongle). The qwerk controller is now outdated, out of stock and not supported. They have something new in store to replace it. If you don't know about the project but are interested, explore this:
http://www.terk.ri.cmu.edu/
It was the last year when 8-bit computing nostalgia hit me hard. I started to browse internet a lot about retro computers, following e-bay auctions of Commodore and Apple computers and old PC compatible DOS machines. I started to miss these simpler and filled with enthusiasm times. This is when I decided that I will start my new hobby, the computer/micro controller hardware and software building hobby. At that time I decided I would one day build my own 8-bit computer system. Something that I believe I would achieve much earlier when I was born and taken education at a different country than my motherland and perhaps at a little earlier time.
So, I started my 8051 based project then, as a warm up (to improve my soldering iron wielding skills), which is now finished. You can read about it here:
http://6502cpu.blogspot.com/2012/01/805 ... ssage.html
Then we went to visit Poland on summer of 2011. When we visited my wife's mother I unboxed my Commodore computers (I have 2 C64C units), datasette units and disk drives (1541 and 1571). I decided to take them back to US and start using them in my hobby projects. Back in U.S. I bought power adapter and composite to VGA PAL-NTSC converter to use my European Commodore hardware here. It worked. In the meantime one of the drives (1541) broke when I was playing with my 1541XA cable. I bought 3 old 1541s off e-bay, swapped electronics from good one to broken one, did some calibrating on the old clunkers drive mechanisms and I have now one 1541 hooked to a PC computer, 2 more with my C64 and one spare. What a great system it was. I still like to fire it up, load turbo assembler and write programs just on the real hardware, have this awesome look and feel experience with C64, that no emulator can reproduce.
At the end of 2011/beginning of 2012 my new project finally takes shape - 6502 based 8-bit computer. You can read about it here:
http://6502cpu.blogspot.com/2012/01/650 ... n-and.html
and this is where I am now. Husband and dad in his early 40-s that had awaken the inner child within himself.
Thank you for reading. See you in the forum's discussion threads. I am going to stay here for a while.
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