Hello all,
It's nice to find this forum, and thread.
I grew up on both DOS and Apple II computers, and subsequently 68k/PPC macs etc. I learned to solder when I was a teenager to break import protections on home consoles, primarily to play fighting games etc. that weren't released in the US.
Over the last 10 years or so I have done a lot of arcade repair, and a lot of arcade boards are very similar to older microcomputers. Many arcade motherboards / PCBs consist primarily of a 68k, Z80, sound / video amps, EPROMS and GALs.
I've always had a fascination with the IIe since it was the first Apple computer I got to use. A few years ago I got an IIgs, and then recently also restored a nice IIe platinum.
Eventually, after enough shopping for all the Apple II stuff on the market, I noticed ReActive Micro sells Briel Computers 'Replica 1 Plus' kits. It's a really nice Apple I clone, and so far, I have been able to get both the P-LAB SD expansion (with help of the developer) and 'Uncle Bernie's improved Cassette interface (ACI) working in the Briel replica. So functionally I am able to load programs from USB->Serial (slowest), Tape (not too bad), or SD (almost instant). I don't use a bus extender though, so I only use one card or the other (cassette interface or SD card) at a time.
While I've done a ton of stuff like BASH scripting over the years, and wrote my first programs in BASIC, I never really did anything on my own with machine code. Between working on arcade games (dumping, verifying, modifying, burning ROMS) and my own skills/experiences with computers, I was recently able to make a small 3 byte change to WozMon to enable auto-boot of the SD interface. So, I guess the 6502 is officially the first microprocessor I personally wrote/modified machine code for. I'm not a youtuber in the sense of going after subscribers and stuff but I did make a video demonstration of it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUwAQ8LuqgMCheers,
Alex