drogon wrote:
And I never had an Apple //gs, but plenty of Apple ][, BBC Micro and other 6502 system experiences)
I have a couple IIgs's. They are an absolute joy to use. A little pricey to upgrade, however. Just about everyone who owns one wants to overclock it and put a bunch of RAM in it. Which is really pricey. Just not my cup of tea.
drogon wrote:
It seems it's becoming harder and harder now to build a retro style computer though - through hole stuff is becoming scarcer and scarcer
I'm not sure how true that is. Warning, shameless plug....I just created one called the Potpourri6502 that's all through-hole and using newly made parts. I think we'll have through-hole parts for years to come. Just too many devices out there that need them. Of course, SMD is a great choice too. But I wouldn't go SMD just because through-hole are on the decline.
Granted, if you want FPGA and/or CPLD then yeah...through-hole is getting harder for them. Especially 5V versions. But the ATF1504/8 are still good options there. But you said no PLD's.
drogon wrote:
The hardest part? Video - can't get those old video chips now - well, some on ebay, but it would be just too easy to stick a Raspberry Pi0 there, but then where do you stop...
This is the single biggest reason it has taken me so long to build my first SBC. I never could find a video solution that I like. The closest one that I recommend is a Parallax micro-controller. It has a bunch of pro's. Such as 40 pin DIP, low part count (crystal and EEPROM), has an active and helpful community, and can drive NTSC, PAL and 64 color VGA without breaking a sweat. The con's are 3V3 only. And, it can be difficult to interface to a really fast computer. Especially 8+ MHz like you're talking.
I wished someone smarter than me would create a nice, easy VGA solution using an ATF1508 (or maybe 04 if possible) and create an easy interface for it. Upload the code as open source, etc.
I'd love to just drop one of those on my computer and have it generate primitive VGA graphics out of RAM during the half-cycle of RAM access like the Apple II did. It would be the closest thing we could get to a modern, through-hole, "somewhat cheap" solution to graphics with 6502 computers.