Introduce yourself

[NickH93]

Been posting a bit and never formally introduced myself, oops!

My name is Nick. I'm a 24 year old university student in French and Japanese. So, nothing to do with programming, shockingly enough.

My love for old machines in general started at 16 when my father let me have his Atari 800XL and TI994/a. I collect a lot these days, and the Apple II was what got me into the 6502. I had this idea after playing with it enough that I thought was crazy. I wondered if I could make my own 6502-based computer, and sure enough there is quite the community for it.

Before starting 6502 assembly with my build, my only programming experience was some BASIC and entry-level Pascal.

[BigEd]

Thanks for your intro Nick! It's been a bit quiet on this thread.

[clm72]

Just subscribed and found this page and so introducing myself as well.

I started computer when I was 13 in 1982, first on TI57 calculators and then Sharp MZ80B computer in parallel in the junior high school computer club.
We had programming teaching by the director of the school, a computer nut himself, also Math teacher.

I then a couple of years later got a Commodore 64 computer for my 15th birthday, which got catastrophic to me since its basic didn't exploit any of its great graphic and sound capabilities (in truth just an old PET basic) adding to a snail slow cassette reader. I so got later a basic extension cartridge and floppy disk unit 1541, and got interesting in the 6502 and machine language programming to be able to exploit that machine.
I then switched to the commodore 128, then to PC with an amstrad PC1512, and so on with an AT286, 386, etc... to finally end switching to Apple mac Books with mac OS X ( worked for a year in apple center as technician fixing macs, in time mac os OS 7.5).

I started to collect old computers with ebay, grabbing a lot of machines, of my pioneer times including commodore 64, SX64, 128, apple 2, BBC B,Dragon 32&64, DAI, Apple mac classic, SE, SE30, Mac II, TRS 80 coco, Archimedes, Thomson TO7, Amiga (1000,2000,1200), Atari 1040ST, Sharp MZ80K, MZ80B, ORIC1&Atmos, Einstein tatung, Sinclair ZX81, Amstrad CPC 464 & 6128, and lately have bought a faulty PET CBM 3032. Some of these machines are also faulty and finally got after plugging them again after many years stored in attic.

I am actually trying to fix the CBM 3032, and looking for infos, and that's how I have landed here on the 6502.org website.
Will post and other topic about my CBM 3032 troubles.

[BigEd]

Welcome! That's a collection of nice machines...

[Martin_H]

Wow, that's quite a collection of machines! I had a TI-57 back in 1979 and it was a lot of fun.

[clm72]

Martin_H wrote:

Wow, that's quite a collection of machines! I had a TI-57 back in 1979 and it was a lot of fun.

thanks complimenting on my collection! I even own several of some models like the apple 2 ( 2Apple 2+ and a 2e) or commodore 64, two C64 and 1 C64-II,
2x 1541 and 1x1541-II,as for 128 I have C128D, which I had by the time after my C64. I also missed to mention the complete Apple 2C.
I also have a few matrix printers, including the MZ80P, DMP for the amstrad, must have 2 x 6128

I had a friend who even had a IIGS, don't think he would sell it anyhow.

of course it took me years to gather all of this, and I am now afraid that many of them wouldn't work anymore if I would plug them back.
I ha da talk with a guy who repair the Apples. He said that at least 30% of the mac SE or definitively dead because of capacitors leaks damaging the board.
I am in trouble with the disk unit on the Apple2 but he know how to fix them and the control board.
At least the Dragon both work, and I have 1 disk unit. Also tested the Thomson for which I have a disk unit.

anyway some people have more than I have, like those who run some youtube channels showing their collection piece by piece in working order and launching some programs and detailing each computer history.
I regret not buying some pieces when price was not as high as today; or pieces rare, like that Hector HRX I had found on a former free biding website named i-bazar, later bought by ebay.
I got some nice pieces for quite nothing, amiga1000 complete with screen against a simple book! Commodore SX64 for quite nothing, some other I had to buy on ebay from foreign countries like Germany for the MZ80B complete with disk unit and all expansion cards, but don't own any floppy disk to go with it. England for the MZ80K in its original cardboard box.
Some other I just have been given like a thomson TO9 I didn't mention, but I don't have much interest for the THomson machines.
The sharp MZ are very very nice machines.
Also omitted to mention a sinclair ZX spectrum but since I don't even know where it is now, like a Thomson MO5 and maybe a Commodore Plus4 I just ask to myself if I just dream I got them...

I of course own a Ti57, and also a Ti59 calculator. Seen Ti58 on catalogs, but never seen any for sell on ebay.

I am also trying to troubleshooting the DAI, bought from belgium a few years ago (belgium computer), very rare but very interesting piece, not for a cheap price, supposed to be in working order, but boots and crashes before end of the total cycle, display 'DAI Computer' then lines of '------' and no basic prompt as supposed. I'll next check the roms contents.

Will check ROMs

[barrym95838]

Martin_H wrote:

Wow, that's quite a collection of machines! I had a TI-57 back in 1979 and it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, me too. I couldn't afford any computers in the 70s, but I had lots of different calculators ... mostly TIs and Commodores. My favorite, however, was a Litronix 2250. It wasn't the most capable, but it was the most handsome, and its keyboard had the best feel.

Mike B.

[BigEd]

I had a TI-57 too, although I didn't mention it in my introductory post. Calculators held, and still hold, a fascination for me. I was particularly fond of a little Commodore SR7949 I had, quite a rare model as it turns out, with a 10+2 digit display packed into 5+2. I still have it, but it stopped working and I sent the chip off for deprocessing. Unfortunately that was unsuccessful.

[6502cloud]

Hi all! I'm the creator of 6502cloud.com... I've been a c64 fan since the early 80's... I taught myself assembly in highschool, and now work as a lead software dev with over 20 years experience (C, C++ and Python). I've scratched the 6502 itch off and on over the years..

The creation of 6502cloud came to me one day when watching a python video of someone putting an old superboard II online as a 'service'.. So i thought to myself, why not put a 6502 online? That lead me into a venture/rabbit of AWS playing.. Anyways.. I'll start a new thread about 6502cloud.

tl;dr Hello all!

[Fatsie]

I have used the C64 in my youth. I once started programming a text editor in assembly on that machine. That project stopped then when I had the text opening screen ready .

Currently I am working on a project for getting open source ASICs produced. I will present the project at ORConf next week. Details will follow later in the appropriate forum section but given I post here you can understand MOS6502 will make up part of the story.

[BigEd]

Welcome - sounds like you have something interesting going on there!

[dourish]

Since I just posted over in Newbies, I should just introduce myself. When I was a kid, my first computers were all 6502-based -- a Commodore Pet 2001 was the first I ever used and programmed, and a BBC Micro the first I ever owned. Those started me down a path that took me to a computer science degree, a Ph.D., research positions at Apple and Xerox PARC, and now life as a professor at the University of California. But it all started with the 6502 and I'm delighting in getting back to basics and re-learning all the things that my 16-year-old self took for granted.

On a dull family holiday when I was a sullen teenager, I amused myself by writing (in pen, on paper, in a notebook) a subroutine-threaded FORTH implementation. When I got home, I typed it in and, to my utter amazement, it actually worked pretty much right away. Now that I've gotten my basic 6502 SBC running, getting a (home-grown) FORTH up for it is the next goal. I'm really wishing that that notebook was still around... it'd be nice to run the same code all these years later. Kinda makes you want to never throw anything away!

[BigEd]

Great story dourish - welcome!

[bdk6]

I was fascinated by computers from an early age, and wanted one. I remember seeing early personal computers and thinking, "WOW! Now I can have one!" I finally got my hands on a TRS-80 at school a couple years later and I was hooked forever. I got a Sinclair ZX-81 kit (before Timex took over US sales) and built it. At the age of 17, in 1983, I upgraded to the VIC 20. It was an incredible step up! Color graphics, a whopping 5K of RAM, user port and expansion port just begging me to build stuff! I planned to build either a home-automation system or, even better, a robot with it. Maybe both! Then I joined the army and "upgraded" computers again, stashing the VIC in its box. I drug it around the world for the next 25 years or so, taking it out to play once in a while. I'm still fascinated by it and its possibilities. Now that I'm sort of stable (geographically, not mentally) I'm going to finally build that robot. The VIC is STILL a great machine for that.

Will

[BigEd]

Excellent - welcome!