Whatever happened to Ben Eater?

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Bill

I imagine real life happened - hopefully not in a bad way. But there is a pandemic going on so health and family issues could well have come up.

(For context, his youtube, twitter, and patreon have all been quiet for six months or more.)

While many would hope that Ben Eater would disappear quietly, it is possible that an FPGA series may be forthcoming before Christmas 2022. Anything Ben Eater may want to do on a breadboard has been exceeded by akohlbecker. Likewise, the logical progression from breadboard to PCB has already been exceeded by rehsd and visrealm. I assume that the pregnant pause is due to an abandoned PCB series followed by work to integrate a SAP-1 derivative processor, PS/2 keyboard interface, text and sprite VGA interface, sound, UART and cell networking on a 3840 LUT Lattice iCE40. (Note: Ben Eater previously worked at Juniper Networks.)

While it would be possible to fit SAP-1, 6502 and everything else in 7680 LUT, where would Ben Eater get a suitably licensed 6502 implementation? After the NAND gate outrage (NANDgategate?), crediting anyone would be "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation. Whereas, writing an original implementation could double the scope of a project which may already exceed 500 hours.

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Modules | Processors | Boards | Boxes | Beep, Beep! I'm a sheep!

Hi friends, I read some posts where I perceive kind of a bad mood in regards to Ben Eater, as far as I can understand (I'm a non native-english speaker) it seems to me that there is a sense of disdain.

Is there something wrong he did to the community?

Andrea

I wish we didn't have those kinds of comments - they distract from our main shared interests, and often they expose someone's potentially-divisive attitudes.

What Ben's done is made a series of videos about a simple design and got a lot of people making 6502 systems.

What he didn't do was take an exhaustively careful approach, or explain every little wrinkle, and as a consequence some small proportion of those newly-minted experimenters have come here with questions. Mostly, we are welcoming and helpful, and with luck these people do get their problems solved, and maybe some will continue with 6502 and perhaps even join and enrich this community.

But there's a small strident element here who like to state bald facts in an unwelcoming way, and who seem to think Ben should have done things their way.

And as ever, if one strident critic speaks up, it encourages others to be disparaging.

We should be better than that.

Thank you BigEd, now I get the point.


I fully agree.


I know Ben's video and myself started Ben's projects (8-bit computer and 6502 computer) and completed them. It was a great school, but - obviously - not enough. I must say that Ben's way seems to go for raising interest by means of very powerful visuals, showing that things are not so difficult and letting people get that they *can* succeed in building a small computer and *starting* their journey.

I agree that videos were not enough. So I made lot of searches on this forum, on Garth web mine and much more, in order to get into deeper level than what was shown by Ben.
I do not think Ben should be blamed for not having a 100%-comprehensive approach; I think he made a great job in getting so many people interested in 6502. Also, as a guiding principle, I cannot expect to learn *everything* from a single source of knowledge. TBH, actually, Ben's sometimes simplistic approach helped me to understand the need for learning about troubleshooting and making myself interested in learning even more than what was shown in his video series.

Finally, thank you for your very comprehesive and polite answer.

Thanks for your story! It chimes, I think, with my idea of how things can go. Electronics is not totally easy, and learning to debug, and to experiment, is part of it.

I do think, if building Ben's design isn't to be the end of a journey, but the beginning, one does need to do more reading, more experimentation, learn more, and so on.

On the one hand, I don't like over-complicating, or introducing obscure considerations, but on the other hand, I do think we need to progress from the basics towards the more detailed understanding.

I suppose really I'm exposing my theory of teaching (and of learning) - one can't just dump all the truths on the student, and indeed, often enough the early lessons are full of approximations - or untruths, if you like, but helpful approximations.

Oh Yes. Remember me.

To recap. A Biologist. Born 1980. Missed the "6502-boat", but PLAYED. Oh did I play !!!!!

Went to University, 1998-2002. When I got out, I was back home with father and mother, in the basement looking through his New England tech books (associate's, 2-year degree; Followed by "SARTS tester", New England Telephone (NYNEX/Bell Atlantic/ Verizon) from 1985-circa 2000. Oh, those crazy monopolies !!!!!).

What do I find amongst his books?

Rodnay Zaks 6502.

I am interested in Natural Intelligence (animals etc). And Artificial Intelligence (2002 Pentium IIs and IIIs). And he has some electronics workbooks that walk me thorugh power supply breadboards and some 7400 ICs. So, age 22-23, I also pck uop a Barry Brey 8086/through Pentium textbooks, discussing MASM and TASM. And Wakerley's "Hardware Design" with VHDL Verilog etc HDL.

So. I get to understand some things. I get distracted by job search for about 10 years. But 2013?2015? I find this forum. Start to think and build.

Foolishly of course. But creatively and actively engaged in what, for most of you, is "old hat" and nostalgia.

I get distracted another 5 years. Pick up a raspberry pi habit. Learn some linux and some bash scripting. Work a bit more on "historyb of tech" and my "technopoly game".

I stumble bass ackwards into a small amount of cash. And Ben Eater's easy kit.

I havent had time too crack into it. Not past the timing circuit and powerup and random behavior of the floating pins. But I need an "idiot proof" walk through.

So while advanced discussion is what you crave, some seek a trip through history; not nostalgia.

sheep64, While I am no Ben Eater and I largely skipped over the FPGA chapter in Wakerley, (preferring Karnaugh maps? Maybe?), I have said some wildly stupid and silly things about hardware.

I always wanted a "proof of concept" 6502 instantiation in ALL LIGHT, using only dichoric color filter mirrors for "path choosing".

with 3,000-4,000 transistors; with the Balaczs transistor map; with the NES break color diagram. I could do it? Maybe?

Just a few laser pointers? Maybe a TI DMD (digital micromirror device)? Cheap Eval kit for 100$ . Maybe a microlens array for focusing laser beams into my FOICs (Fiber Optic Image conduits).

There's approx. 3,000 fibers in each conduit. If each transistor is a 3 terminal device? 3,000 X 3 = 9,000.

A silly idea/ Sure. but one step closer to being functional. Now. If I could only create "functional completeness" using only dichroic mirrors, and the odd, occasional "switching behavior" of the DMD.

P.S. Any of you experts know how many "paths" there are on a 6502 chip? 3 nodes per transistor? So the "paths" would just be ....?

Remember the monster 6502?

I thought we were going to get a commercially sold kit of that BEAST !!!

Nevermind Ben Eater. Where's the MONSTER!

While I appreciate the compliment, I don't want to be associated with such statements. Ben is why I got into this hobby in the first place, and I have immense respect for him and his amazing work explaining and vulgarizing complex concepts. I wouldn't have started producing videos if it weren't for his inspiration.

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BB816 Computer YouTube series

Not only that, but if he's been laid low due to ill health or family trouble, it's not just unkind but tone deaf too. It's important to remember that people have real lives - people here, and people who blog or publish videos. They are not just names, and they don't only exist to serve our interests.

Sheep64, could you please edit this and remove this remark? The Ben Eater bashing here is getting out of hand.

Personally, I am very appreciative of the work Ben did, and the work of others, like akohlbecker. Ben's projects piqued my interest in processors, including the 6502 and 65816, and I have been having a great time learning and experimenting. I do often sense a tone of "why are you doing it that way?!" which I take with a grain of salt. I am glad this community exists and that members are willing to share their experiences, recommendations, and criticisms.

I'm not familiar with the work of the person this thread is about, but I agree with BigEd and andreamazzai. It is very difficult to teach everything totally perfectly the very first time. If the bar for who is allowed to make videos about electronics is so high that people feel like they are not allowed to even try to teach others even newer than them (for fear of not doing a good enough job) then it sounds like a lot less people would be here.