Introduce yourself

[brionl]

Hi Everybody!
I've been fooling around with computers for a long time now, and even made a living at it for a while (US Army computer nerd), but I'm pursuing other career options currently.
The first microcomputer I bought was an AIM-65, which I still have, and which is currently non-functional as I previously mentioned. My next microcomputer was an Apple //e, which I had fully pimped out with dual floppies, 48K RAM, parallel printer, humongous 5MB hard drive and much much more. When I bought a Mac SE/30, I gave the Apple to my sister and her family. Who proceeded to throw it away a couple years later when they bought an IBM PC.

Anyway these days I'm looking for something to fill my onrushing retirement years, and I'm looking at messing about with scratch building computers. I've got the usual Raspberry Pi's and Arduino's and now I have a W65C816sxb development system.

Last week I had a hernia operation, so I've been sitting around with some time on my hands. The day after the operation, I was on a lot of pain meds, and reading Programming the 65816, and looking at Arduino shields and spare parts online. I had some really weird dreams that night.

[dderny]

Interested in the 6502 since 1979, I worked for Procep (official importer of Commodore machines in France)
I developed mostly for the commodore 8000 I was also doing the support of the Procep hard disk (sasi/scsi) and network

I have several personal hardware projects, mainly to repair commodore boards
- ps2 adapter for the keyboard C64/VIC20/CBM 8000/CBM700 (I'm planning to use ESP32 to avoid any cables)
- vga video output
I'm also writing a monitor for 6502, with a syntax close to cbm 8000 monitor
the goal is to have it available on any 6502 machine (I plan to extend it to w65c816)

[BigEd]

Thanks for your intros, Christian, dderny, and brionl!

[Agumander]

Hi! I've been lurking for quite a while now but procrastinated on posting. I'm a software engineer by trade and training, and in my spare time play the amateur inventor. Until last year my electronics tinkering only went as deep as hooking Arduino modules together. After a project required that I learn PCB design for the sake of compactness, I started messing with logic ICs and fantasizing about building a game system. I was drawn to the 6502 because of the CMOS version still being available today, and I had already encountered its assembly language that one time I tried out NES programming. This year I've prototyped the cartridges, one of the audio channels, and the composite-out video card. It's been a challenge jumping from software to hardware, but also rewarding.

[BigEd]

Welcome! Good to see you've already started up a project thread.

[hicks]

Hi everyone.

I'm a software engineer. I work with semi-embedded stuff writen mostly in C++. I do like however to tinker with the hardware as well. Many years back (as a kid) I had an 8bit Atari computer, but at that time I could only write some small BASIC programs. I have some experience working with AVR and ARM (mostly AVR). Recently I watched some interesting youtube videos made by Ben Eater where he showed how to build 6502 based computer. What catched my interest was the fact those chips are still manufactured. Namely CMOS versions by WDC. So I decided to give it a try and ordered CPU and few other parts to play with.

[BillO]

Welcome aboard hicks!

A lot of folks have been watching and trying Mr. Eater's experiments. He's been a bit of a boon to the 6502.

[CaptainCulry]

Hey All!

The first computer I used with 6502 was the NES. I just played games on it. For regular computers I was on the TRS-80 Color Computer 1, Apple IIe's, and then later 8088, 80386 Recently I decided to try my hand at learning how to write NES ROM's, targeting emulators with the ROMs since I don't have the old hardware anymore. That sparked my interest in learning about the hardware. I work as a technician in an Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at a College and generally work more with MCU's, such as ARM Coretex M4F. I figured I could put together a simple 6502 build and find a use for it in the deparment. There's a ton of great resources on this forum. The 6502 primer is gold, as well as a bunch of the other information. Thanks for all the help so far guys!

[ojanhk]

Hi everyone,
This is a long overdue introduction as I joined 6 month ago.
Not surprisingly I work in IT mostly on systems, DB and other infrastructure related stuff.
I discovered the 6502 with my second computer an Atari 600XL in the early 80s and soon moved to an Apple //c.
Last year I decided to discover electronics and based on my Apple // past went on to build a computer. I first designed a very simple machine using a Teensy micro-controller and a WDC65C02 with the Teensy emulating everything but the CPU. Quite strangely, it worked on first try… I then added real RAM and ROM and it worked too.

Since then I built a second one, without Teensy but using RAM, ROM, 22v10 and WDC’s broken 65C51. It works well and even reach 7Mhz on a breadboard.

Next steps will be adding one or two 65C22, experimenting with RAM and ROM banking, adding some USB storage and why not some video system…

Apart from that, the old Apple //c and Atari 600XL recently resurfaced from my parent’s basement and are still working, so I might give a try at coding in assembly for these two.

All this has been possible thanks to this forum and the huge quantity and quality of information available here (and also the Primer). So big thanks to everyone !


Olivier

[BigEd]

Welcome, Olivier!

[Shawn Odekirk]

Hello everyone.
I have to say that one of the most influential books I ever read was "From Chips to Systems" by Rodnay Zaks. After I read it, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to design and build computers. I hopped on my bicycle (I wasn't old enough to drive at the time) and rode over to the nearest semiconductor company I could find. I seem to remember it being a Hitachi office near what is now known as the John Wayne International airport, but was just the Santa Ana airport back then. I walked straight in and asked them for any information they could give me about the microprocessors they made. I left 10 minutes later with a backpack full of data books. I sometimes wonder what they thought about a kid coming in wanting to build a computer.
Life didn't go according to that plan, and I ended up becoming a software engineer instead. I currently work for a company that makes material handling automation equipment used in warehouses and distribution centers. I often write the software that interfaces with the customer's warehouse management system, the high-level controls and the user interface. I program in C on SCO Unix machines (yes, they still exist!), C on Linux (porting the SCO systems to Linux), and Java and C# on Windows. I enjoy my work a lot, but the desire to build a computer has remained with me.
I was lucky to have a father who embraced technology. I remember that we had something like a teletype machine with no monitor connected to a time sharing-system. I got in big trouble when I went through a whole ream of paper playing Star Trek. Later my father had what I seem to remember being an IBM System/32 installed in the master bedroom. I think an electrician needed to install a 240V circuit for it. I'm not sure how my mother felt about that.
We had an Atari 2400, and then a Mattel Intellivision.
My first computer was an Apple II+ with a green CRT. It was easy on the eyes, but not so great for games. My best friend and I dabbled with 6502 machine language, entering machine code by hand since we couldn't afford an assembler (did the Apple II+ monitor have a built-in assembler?). Sadly I never had a C64, but I did have an Amiga 1000 and later an Amiga 1200, which I dearly loved and still have in storage. I will never get rid of that computer!
I have to credit Ben Eater's YouTube videos for reigniting my desire to build a computer. I bought the 6502 breadboard kit and have followed along with the videos. Then I bought an additional set of chips and am working on a wire wrapped version.
It has been a long time since I programmed in assembly language, but it has been a lot of fun getting back into it. I've really enjoyed the experience so far and am looking forward to what lies ahead.

Shawn

[cjs]

Welcome, Shawn!

Shawn Odekirk wrote:

Later my father had what I seem to remember being an IBM System/32 installed in the master bedroom. I think an electrician needed to install a 240V circuit for it. I'm not sure how my mother felt about that.

Lol.

Quote:

My best friend and I dabbled with 6502 machine language, entering machine code by hand since we couldn't afford an assembler (did the Apple II+ monitor have a built-in assembler?).

The unexpanded II+ did not, as it came with the Autostart ROMs that needed the space for Applesoft BASIC. However, the original ROMs (with Integer BASIC) had the mini-assembler, which is very handy. You could have it on an Autostart ROM machine if you had the firmware card with the older ROMs or you had the "Language Card" which added 16 KB of RAM into which the older ROM code could be loaded. (From the Applesoft prompt you'd type INT to switch to the Integer BASIC ROM image and then, after you typed CALL -151 to enter the monitor, F666G would start the mini-assembler.)

[BigEd]

Great story Shawn, thanks for posting your intro!

[vermeire_mathias]

I am also here because Ben Eater's videos. I have always been interested in old 8bit hardware. as a kid I wend to recycle parks to get old hardware pull apart. I still have some old chips from that time that I can't seem to throw away.
Anyway, my 6502 breadboard computer is almost don. but I have lots of questions, especially about the software part.
So you can expect some questions from me in the future.

[BigEd]

Welcome! Look forward to your questions - in a new thread please, or on the end of existing relevant threads. Be sure to search the forum and to have good look around Garth's primer too:
http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/