A little more about my experience...
Apple ][+ as a pre-teen, original Mac as a teen
B.S. Math/Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon in the early 90s with an emphasis on OS design, networking, and distributed systems
M.S. in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington in 2000
30+ years as an entrepreneur, the first 10 years working on the early PDAs and smartphones

I've designed parts of CPUs in Verilog, coded a dozen different assembly languages, spent most of my coding career in C, and most relevant to this discussion group, spent most of my coding career on handheld devices with limited RAM, little to no storage, and the early days of networking. Thus for me the "every bit and byte counts" philosophy of the 70s was still part of my life in the 90s and 00s.

That experience also means I got to hand-optimize AT&T Hobbit assembly the same week I hand-optimized ARM and x386 assembly. And no, I'm not going to propose a 65H02 with any of the features of that Hobbit chip. It may RIP.

Hi all,
I think it's time to introduce myself. I'm 53 living in germany and started my computer career in the early 80ties. With zx81 and zx spectrum. I never liked this z80 language, and as the apples these days where to expensive, I switched to the newly vc 20 and later the C64. Than in the study time I'll switched to Intel and PCs. But never forgot the simplicity of the 6502.
Now I'm a Systems architect for cloud systems. In my spare time I'm working with arduino in a kids workshops. Having experience with all the major boards, ESP series, Rpi pico, Rpi, STM and so on. Implementing some dialect and emulator, assembler of the TPS for different boards.
TPS, as called in german: Tastenprogrammierbare Steuerung, it's an interpreter running on a microcontroller, which than can be programed in the simple TPS language with only three buttons and 4 LEDs.
The inventor page is here: https://www.b-kainka.de/lpTPS.html
My page with all the related stuff: http://rcarduino.de/doku.php?id=arduino:arduinosps

Now I had started a 6502 SBC. Just for fun. I read many blogs, articles and other stuff and then I came across this forum. I've already read a lot here, but of course there will be more questions. So, I think, later I'll present the project.

ps.:
Here an tps article in english: https://www.elektronik-labor.de/Lernpak ... rticle.pdf

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don't count on me, i'm engineer (Animotion)
my arduino pages: http://rcarduino.de

_________________
x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Welcome, and thanks for the interesting links! A very minimal interface which might suit a number of limited-IO situations. I'm sure a 6502 could implement the TPS virtual machine. I look forward to new threads from you!

[oops, crossed in the post...]

I got my first computer in the late 80s or maybe early 90s. A family member was upgrading to a new system and I managed to get the one they were replacing. I'm fairly certain it was a Laser Compact XT. No hard disk and a single 5.25" floppy drive. With it came several disks. I don't recall if it included or if I found elsewhere an orange monochrome monitor for it. After hours wasted trying to get it to boot to something other than "replace system disk" or some similar error I had a friend's dad take a look at it. He determined that we were using the wrong DOS disks. I still don't know which version I had or which version it required, but he was kind of enough to supply a boot disk.

Later on I learned that a different friend of mine had parents who were sort of mad geniuses with computers. They helped me acquire some beast of a system that had TWO 5.25" floppy drives, but still no hard disk. They sold me a CGA monitor for pretty cheap and I was on my way. I dabbled a little in GW-Basic and pestered my friend's parents with stupid questions. One of which led them to giving me a hex-editor software so I could "hack" the high scores on JumpJet and tease my older brother.

As time went on I eventually managed to get my hands on a "modern" computer. Some brand of 386 with Windows 3.1 on it! I don't remember much about this machine. Because shortly after I got 486DX with Windows 95 on it. Finally, I could play Doom! I still dabbled with my lame "hacking" adventures and was gifted the K&R C book. I was excited to see that my High School was offering a programming class. I signed up in hopes that it would be something like C or this mystical C++ I'd been hearing about. But alas, it was Visual Basic. But it was still a lot of fun and I met other nerdy kids like me. One of whom taught me some basic HTML tags and helped me cause nuisance in class by finding ways to get past the school's internet filter. Looking back, my teacher in that class had the patience of a saint and never discouraged our zeal for learning...even when she probably should have.

Finally, at the end of High School before entering College I got a new machine with Windows ME on it. My friend's computer genius parents had gotten me bitten by the Linux bug and I decided to try it out. This is when I learned that drivers are a thing and at the time Linux sucked if you were a dialup user. I also learned at this time what a Master Boot Record was and that if you were going to quit Linux for Windows again you would need to remember the esoteric "fdisk /mbr".

I'm mostly self-taught, but at some point several years ago I took an Intro to C class for a semester. It's probably the language I'm most comfortable with, but still probably a beginner nearing intermediate. I've dabbled in 6502 and 65816 programming for the NES & Apple IIe and the SNES & Apple IIGS respectively. I like the 65x because it's so direct and works with the hardware and system in a way I'd never experienced. I'm not a great, or even, good programmer. I've followed a few tutorials and can get a NES sprite on screen and move it with the joypad. And I can get the SNES to boot with a background color of my choosing.
I've acquired a nice collection of 6502 books, but haven't crossed the gap from understanding that LDA #4 puts a 4 in the accumulator to making Pong.

I'm interested in learning more 65x and would like to start making things...Things that are all beyond my level I'm sure. Like a musical keyboard (synthesizer). I'm also curious about HAM radio and electronics in general. I've done some basic soldering to modify the controls on electric guitars, but nothing super cool or in depth.

That's me in a nutshell.

TL;DR: I'm not only a dummy, I'm ambitious too!

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

You say that as if it's a bad thing... But it sounds like a healthy attitude to me!

Quite a few of our members are musicians. And there are some Hams here, too. Welcome!

-- Jeff

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In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

It's a bit late (35 posts in 20 years!) but I suppose better than never, as I seem to have reappeared...

I got my first computer just after I started working in 1978 - a Sinclair MK14 which I still have though its ROMs are dead, followed shortly by a Tangerine Microtan 65. In those days, if you wanted more memory, or a modem, or a video output, you reached for the data sheets and the soldering iron; I built a lot of projects based around Tangerine's ideas but usually with video output genlocked to broadcast video.

I taught the company's official microprocessor trainer (z80) to other engineering colleagues; played with Nixie clocks and Atmel video generation, and left the company after thirty-odd years to get back to engineering - twelve years of project managing with the (literal) risk of being shot at was enough.

I designed deep oil drill guidance sytems for a while: PIC and z80 assembly and occasionally C when I could persuade the boss; multi-processor controls with obfuscated comms systems between modules, nasty. But interesting with communication from the drill head to the drill at two minutes per bit... and most recently, designing the best cat feeders and cat flaps in the world, working with ARM and trying to use as few microamps as possible.

I thought I'd retired a couple of years ago, but last year the company made me an offer I couldn't refuse to work remotely a couple of days a week; I now live in Germany near Potsdam but the company's in the UK at Cambridge.

I've had various amusements with 6502 over the years including emulators and most recently I've designed a variant of Grant Searle's minimal SBC (I'm awaiting his permission to publish) so I'm currently writing a simple monitor (the usual; memory read and write and dump, single step, and one-line assembler and disassembler) if I can remember which way up LDA (zp,x) and STA (zp),y work. The BASIC from Grant's page worked first time (after a couple of minor layout errors were fixed

I hate breakout boards with a passion; I have never found them reliable and wouldn't even consider trying to build a system of any complexity... straight to PCB is a no-brainer given the cost of them these days, and reduces the possible faults to either bad design or bad soldering. In another stream of consciousness I'm slowly building a discrete version of an 8080 (minus DAA and parity flags, which are pretty pointless these days). It works - two different versions - in simulation and runs Tiny Basic very very slowly. I've just completed the ALU built in a close approximation to way it's done on the chip (thanks to Ken Shirriff's excellent analysis) which worked first time in hardware.

Over the years I've worked - usually in machine code but also in C - with INS8060, 6502, 6800, 6809, 8080, 8085, z80, 8086 and descendents, and ARM in various incarnations. But I still have an affection for the 6502.

Neil

Great intro - better late than never!

_________________
x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Ah... not an area I would have cared to work, I feel

I used to build TV and Radio facilities, sometimes in nice friendly capital cities, but often just before the war or revolution started, so that the reporters could do their jobs. Being an armed foreigner was definitely a bad idea.

Neil

Hey guys,

I just wanted to introduce myself as I've been around here a lot, but just as a lurker. I've found lots of really useful information here during for my projects.

I am a hobbyist on the hardware side, but, in my real life I work in IT (Systems & Network engineering).

The thing that's been consuming my time lately is a project I've been working on to build a Kansas City Standard interface for the 6502. Most of you around here already know, but, KCS is a way to store data on standard audio casettes. It was used in the late 70s/early 80s and gave users a cheap storage option, which in those times was hard to come by.

I've been documenting my build on my YouTube channel and just posted a fresh one on the project if you're interested: https://youtu.be/8Gw-JDOg_2I

I've been in touch with Garth over email, who has helped encourage me to finally create an account here!

Hopefully we'll see you all around!

Greg

Hello world!
Been mostly lurking here for a while and I really like everyone's ideas and musings.
About me: I do something in IT (and have been doing since 1996). My main experience with 6502 stuff is from C64 which I have had since 1986 - recently I have amassed some different variants of these (different board revisions, and also an NTSC model) and now also two VIC-20 boards (PAL and NTSC). I also got Ben Eater's kit, although I haven't started building it.
My main interest is in looking under the hood, and troubleshooting hard software (and sometimes hardware) problems.
Occasionally I write some something here about my findings.
FYI the username is a callback to when I was still doing IRC. It refers to the TeX \mathop command.

Cheers
Michiel

I learned BASIC (and my entire profession, eventually) on an Apple II+ starting in 1980 (tested out of Algebra to get the computer lab to myself one hour a day). Been hooked ever since, even though I never learned much about the hardware until fairly recently.

About 1997 I was give 13 Apple IIe's by a customer that had been tasked with cleaning out a classroom at a condemned high school...and I got back into it again. I still have the best two of those machines, including the FDs, and everything still works like new.

I taught myself electronics so I could learn about AVR 8-bit processors starting around 2003, built a few neat projects, then found an old Apple II interfacing book online and realized that I could REALLY get deep into these machines, after all these years. I joined Call A.P.P.L.E and bought some parts and built a few interface boards...and then I found this site. Whew!

After joining this forum and lurking (yes....) for 3 years:

I finally built something!

In 2020, I was very enthusiastic to start on building 'custom-built' '02 machine. Due to some misconceptions, I thought it would be pointless to prototype a 6502 computer on a solderless board, so I started with a breadboard and after getting distracted by squirrels, I never took it up again.

Then I got a new job, and moved to New Mexico, and.....one day I was reviewing Garth Wilson's excellent tutorials and ruminating over whether to start again. Jinking along on Jameco's site shopping for bench parts, I saw Ben Eater's kits and followed that to his video site and realized I COULD do this. I'd already bought ALL the parts I needed 3 years before.

My motivation has always been that I want to keep those two Apple IIe's going, and the best way to do that is to build one almost entirely from scratch rather than destroy one or both of them by experimenting too much.

So here I am; thanks to Garth and Ben, I've built two working '02 machines on a protoboard with ROM, RAM, a 7-segment display and a PS/2 keyboard interface!

---image notes, see the pictures below----
My 'basics' notes were written about a month ago; I've noticed since I took this picture that my OR'ing of the two ROM select lines is QUITE incorrect. The hardware in question allows you to load the bank address of a 32K or larger EEPROM/FLASH chip into a '374 latch, then read the ROM 8K at a time at C000-DFFF, while at the same time using E000-FFFF for the core ROM code. I HAVE made this work with both the 28c256 and the 29C512, but not quite the way I show here. I have some megabit 39SF010 FLASH ROMs I want to use eventually.
[img 6502_basics.jpg]

And this image shows my 4-digit 7-segment display and the PS/2 keyboard decoder. The display uses an ASCII-to-7-segment ROM table to write 7-bits straight to the 374 latches for each digit.
The PS/2 decoder uses a nifty 11-pulse latch clock circuit form Ben Eaters 'Keyboard hardware' video, two 74HC595s and a 74HC74 as an interrupt generator/reset. Works as advertised after blowing up a '74 package.
[img proto-02-keyb-disp1.jpg]

Because of economy and modularity and pure stubborness, I've decided to build a 'permanent' system out of 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 single-side breadboards ( I got them very cheap at a surplus site ), and I have the basic '02 system board, the 'universal' clock module (with variable 555 clock, single step, and 125 KHz crystal clock), and the SRAM board all working. I have to build a permanent display board and the PS/2 keyboard decoder/interrupt gadget, and I'll have a fully interactive system. Not sure how fast I can run a clock on these when their all together, but I've run the '02 main board at 1Mhz from a canned crystal, so that's promising anyway.

Long term goals: Build my own 'monitor' software for my machine without relying too much on scraping the serial #'s off Woz's original work or stealing too much elsewhere. Work in progress, and I'll post what works and all the dark holes I've stumbled into to get there.
Hardware goals: NTSC and/or VGA adapter, Arduino and ESP32-C3 'coprocessing' interface, robotics.

Eventually this thing will be the core of a home-automation 'supervisor' system, when I'm not just fiddling with it through pure nostalgia.

I owe most of this to Ben Eater's great video series and Garth's excellent 6502 primer, so if you haven't seen either be sure to peruse them.

Meanwhile, I've made every possible mistake, hardware-wise, in the last 6 weeks. Another newbie might benefit from my stupidity, so...don't be shy.

--stuff I've sussed out so far--
CPU: WD65C02
RAM: CY62256, HM6224, AM9128 (also got these last for $1 each somewhere...)
EEPROM/FLASH: 28C256, 29C512

Patrick Struthers
Taos, NM

Thanks for your intros, Patrick, Michiel, Greg!