Current 6502 Kits

[BillO]

tmr4 wrote:

Soon everything will be replaced by ChatGPT...

Including electronics videos on YT:

https://youtu.be/XK4rgIjK9Mw

[sburrow]

barnacle wrote:

[*] Visit supermarket, find food. Pay with a piece of plastic. Magic!

I can even put an Ikea kit together!

Neil

Neil, I can now officially say that I like you You made me laugh more than once!

GARTHWILSON wrote:

modern bloatware eating up all the benefits we might have gotten from hardware advances:

This really burns me up Garth. I came here to read a nice *peaceful* set of responses. Neil made me laugh twice! And now I'm reading this... And you are exactly right. But, you already know that I officially like you too. So I recently had to VPN into the school's system using a school's laptop. It's probably 5 years old at this point. This thing has a quad core, multi-gigahertz processors with gigs of RAM, etc etc, you know what I'm talking about. And, it took 10 minutes to boot. Then it took 10 minutes to start up Firefox. Then it took 10 more minutes to download the software. It locked up on installation along the way, and at that point, I shut the laptop and will no longer be using it. I'll just not VPN, thank you very much school. I guess it's not the school's fault directly, but they paid for the bloatware on that thing. Let me put Linux on it and guaranteed it will run as fast as my desktop, probably faster. Let me put DOS on it and it'll scream past any benchmarks out there. Put 6502 on it, well, if you could, THEN I'd be happy. <grumble grumble> Can't stand to see this...

What do you think about before going to bed? I dream of a world where computers never became our masters, but instead WE are the masters. I fall asleep quickly in 6502-land.

Chad

[BigDumbDinosaur]

sburrow wrote:

What do you think about before going to bed? I dream of a world where computers never became our masters, but instead WE are the masters. I fall asleep quickly in 6502-land.

I try not to think about anything technical when going to bed, lest I then get up and run downstairs into my office and start fiddling with what I was thinking about.

As for computers becoming masters, if all else fails there’s always machine gun fire to put them in their place.

drogon wrote:

kernelthread wrote:

Surely anyone who buys an electronic project kit would expect soldering to be required?

Not really.

Being able to solder is to an electronics tinkerer as being able to suture an incision is to a surgeon.

[barnacle]

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

I try not to think about anything technical when going to bed, lest I then get up and run downstairs into my office and start fiddling with what I was thinking about.]

So far I have resisted the temptation, but on occasion when the thinking room calls me in the wee small hours, it's hard to go back to bed...

Neil

[kernelthread]

drogon wrote:

Not really.

I had an electronics project kit when I was a young teenager (mid 70s) and there was no soldering. I made radios, alarms, amplifiers and so on. A few years later at school we had electronics kits - and again, no soldering. Today we have solderless breadboards - actually, we had them back in the 70s too - I just couldn't afford them but stripboard was cheap.

But think of 320 solder joints.... At 5 seconds a joint (say), that's about half an hour plus the time to place all components. My own record for soldering them up is 3 in an hour (I made up 20 at one point for a demo) but that was really going for it and placing the components on 3 boards at a time, then soldering that area, etc. It was somewhat mind numbing... Then there was testing ...

And I'm not sure what people actually learn from soldering - it's a physical skill, yes, but does it enhance their appreciation or understanding of electronics or learning to code? I'm not sure.

I guess there are two types of kit. One is the "electronics for absolute beginners" type where you get a breadboard and a bag full of components and you build your projects without soldering.
The other type is where you end up with something more permanent, which will require soldering.
To me, soldering the stuff up is part and parcel of building a project.

[tmr4]

kernelthread wrote:

I guess there are two types of kit. One is the "electronics for absolute beginners" type where you get a breadboard and a bag full of components and you build your projects without soldering.
The other type is where you end up with something more permanent, which will require soldering.
To me, soldering the stuff up is part and parcel of building a project.

With low cost PCB manufacturing nowadays, it seems the trend is moving right from the breadboard to producing your own PCB kit for sale.

To me, the value of a kit is the educational value. A kit with a PCB and a bag of parts has little added value above the product itself.

My first soldering electronics kit/course was building a shortwave radio back in the mid-70s. They'd send you the kit's modules one at a time as you finished various lessons. Took me many years to complete it but it was educational and fun. I gave that kit away to a friend decades ago when I was downsizing, getting ready to go off to graduate school. I regret that now that I have time to pick up my electronics hobby again. It would have been fun to tinker with it again.

I don't know if they have similar kits today. I suppose now you'd just look something up on YouTube, watch someone else build it and never really build anything yourself.

Edit: with a little googling I've figured out that the company selling the electronics course/kit I referred to was NRI (National Radio Institute). They went out of business in the early 2000s when the demand for technicians dropped due to the trend to throw things away instead of having them repaired. I haven't been able to find any references to the specific course I took but NRI lesson booklets are readily available online as are some of the test equipment you'd build during the course, their discovery lab for example. I haven't found any images of the shortwave radio I built.

Edit 2:A lot of this stuff has been archived. This isn't exactly the course I took, but a lot of the lessons are the same.

Edit 3:Found an old ad for the course I took. I guess it was a VHF rather than shortwave transceiver (I guess the proper term at the time was Ham radio). Fun times looking back through kits of the past. I was really interested in computers back then but the kits then were too basic. The good kits were either too expensive or still a few years away.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

tmr4 wrote:

My first soldering electronics kit/course was building a shortwave radio back in the mid-70s....Edit: with a little googling I've figured out that the company selling the electronics course/kit I referred to was NRI (National Radio Institute).

I smiled when I saw that name.

Back in the 1950s, when I was getting interested in electronics, I was getting hand-me-down copies of NRI’s “National Radio News” publication from my “Uncle” Mac—it was he who got me started. Most of what was in the newsletter was over my head at the time, but it started to make sense after I built my first kit with “Uncle” Mac’s guidance, which was an Allied Electronics (Knight Kit) VTVM (I was 12 years old at the time and, yes, soldering was required). The VTVM worked on the first try and made it possible for me to “see” things that I had only read about. Also, having built the VTVM and seeing it do what it was designed to do gave me the confidence to tackle more complicated stuff.

“Uncle” Mac (he wasn’t a relative, but treated me like one) would get parts for me, especially relays and vacuum tubes, since I didn’t have an allowance at the time, so I couldn’t buy anything. He also taught me practical skills, especially soldering, wire dressing/harnessing, and basic sheet metal work, the latter skill which became very useful when I built my first hi-fi amplifier, a 15-watt “powerhouse.” I was 13 at the time and built the amp on a blank Budd chassis from a pile of parts—the circuit came from the back of the RCA receiving tube manual. It too worked on the first try, which seems amazing, now that I think about it.

I never took any NRI courses, but did learn a lot from their newsletter, which knowledge was later to be a major advantage when I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and worked my way through their electronics curriculum. That curriculum was taught by instructors with EE degrees and was essentially college level work. Again, some of it was over my head at first, but thanks to what I had studied in the NRI newsletters, it eventually all made sense.

Ah, the good, old days! Today’s kids, monkeying with RPIs and Arduinos, don’t know what they’ve missed.

[plasmo]

plasmo wrote:

Received the "barebones/minimal 6 chip 6502 computer ic kit" yesterday and the result is abysmal. Picture shows the received package, it is well packaged in antistatic foam. There are 7 chips in the package, the 3 TTL tested OK with TL866II programmer; the HM62256 failed TL866II test and also failed to run in a working system; AT28C256 reads OK, but can not be programmed successfully with TL866II; MC68B50 works; and Rockwell R65C02 draws more current than normal CMOS 6502 and does not work even at 1.84MHz.

I ran across the "barebones/minimal 6 chip 6502" kit again and noticed the number sold is now 141. That was 23 more kits from 118 sold on Jan 28 2023. The kit I received was a dud; I complained and seller refunded my purchase. Anyone on 6502.org purchased the kit recently and what's your experience? While eBay has excellent refund policy, you need to test your parts quickly after delivery to receive refund.
Bill

[VinCBR900]

There is also Lee Hart's 6502 40th Anniversary Computer Badge

http://www.sunrise-ev.com/6502.htm

[wayfarer]

so I am setting up the bench here in the new place, work on the house out at the farm is slow and I have days when I can set up a test bench.
I am just starting out again, I have my 74x 4k series chip collection and a few LEDs, couple of Pots and a few 555s etc. nothing fancy, except the really old gold case 2k SRAM chips...

what is going to be my best 'value'?

What is going to be my best bang for the buck?
I hear the Eaterkits are a good value, in terms of breadboards, extra components etc. $90 for what is included seems like an okay price to start out.

for what I am after, something similar to one of @plasmo's board designs. an eeprom programmer that doubles as an SBC is nice.
c0pperdragon on github has a basic SBC design. For right now, Id like to just use something much like @GARTHWILSON's basic setup.

I would consider just buying a breadboard or two (I need one, looking at a 3220 point with the top rails on a backplane) and a set of IC's on ebay, except most are Rockwell and I want to stay WDC.

Should I avoid the eaterkit and just buy off a mouser a few things at a time, or is there a better kickstarter?
any decent 65816 kits Im not seeing?

Im fine deadbugging and breadboarding for awhile, Ive no 3d-printer and no way to etch PCB right now...
I do have Eagle CAD and Ki-CAD with the files for 65xx processors from here on the board for later, right now Id like to blink a few LEDS and start making some block transfers from ROM to RAM and such.

I am looking at the 65134 and 65265 as well, on their little test boards for a few things.

Whats my best choice for tinkering and getting a headless OS kernel working?

[GARTHWILSON]

wayfarer wrote:

I am just starting out again, I have my 74x 4k series chip collection

If you mean 74xx and 4000-series, ie, not one like 74HC4078 8-input OR/NOR gate which is in the 74HC lineup, note that 4000 series without the 74 in front is usually too slow for this type of work.  I mostly use the 4000-series stuff when I need to run logic on a 12V power supply.  For what you want, 74HCxx (or sometimes better, 74HCTxx) will probably be best.

Quote:

Id like to just use something much like @GARTHWILSON's basic setup.

Yes, the basic one I show in the 6502 primer has fewer parts than Grant Searl's "minimum-parts" 6502 computer does.  It is also extendable to up to ten I/O ICs.  It shows a 65c22 VIA instead of 65c51 ACIA, but you could substitute the ACIA if you want, or even use several of each.

Quote:

Ive no 3d-printer and no way to etch PCB right now...

Few if any of us have a 3-D printer; but custom PCB prices have come down to incredibly low prices.  See our topic on that, "Cheap PCB stories...," especially the last page or two.  (It's linked in the 6502 primer too.)  I've mostly been using DirtyPCBs, and have been plenty happy with them.

[wayfarer]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

wayfarer wrote:

I am just starting out again, I have my 74x 4k series chip collection

If you mean 74xx and 4000-series, ...<snip>...  For what you want, 74HCxx (or sometimes better, 74HCTxx) will probably be best.

nah, just a bunch of common stuff for audio and common educational tasks, demos.

Quote:

Id like to just use something much like @GARTHWILSON's basic setup.

Yes, the basic one I show in the 6502 primer has fewer parts than Grant Searl's "minimum-parts" 6502 computer does.  It is also extendable to up to ten I/O ICs.  It shows a 65c22 VIA instead of 65c51 ACIA, but you could substitute the ACIA if you want, or even use several of each.

Ill look into Mr Searle's work.

Quote:

Ive no 3d-printer and no way to etch PCB right now...

Few if any of us have a 3-D printer; but custom PCB prices have come down to incredibly low prices.  See our topic on that, "Cheap PCB stories...," especially the last page or two.  (It's linked in the 6502 primer too.)  I've mostly been using DirtyPCBs, and have been plenty happy with them.

noted. what kit is worth picking up?
should I just buy custom a la carte?

[drogon]

wayfarer wrote:

what is going to be my best 'value'?

What country are you in?

This may well affect what you can get for a certian "value".

e.g. I'm in the UK and importing anything from the US right now is not economically good - for small items it can often double the price on import dutys, VAT and postage )-:

However to get started in the 6502 world go for the Ben Eater kit. It has everything you need in one package and he has a good tutorial to get going.

-Gordon

[plasmo]

wayfarer wrote:

for what I am after, something similar to one of @plasmo's board designs. an eeprom programmer that doubles as an SBC is nice.

If you live in USA, send me a PM, I can drop a blank prog65 board in the mail. It is a simple design even with prototype area, but you do need a FT245 which is relatively expensive ~$15
Bill

[wayfarer]

drogon wrote:

wayfarer wrote:

what is going to be my best 'value'?

What country are you in?
...
-Gordon

I am in the Midwest USA.

plasmo wrote:

wayfarer wrote:

for what I am after, something similar to one of @plasmo's board designs. an eeprom programmer that doubles as an SBC is nice.

If you live in USA, send me a PM, I can drop a blank prog65 board in the mail. It is a simple design even with prototype area, but you do need a FT245 which is relatively expensive ~$15
Bill

I might do that, I am also planning to look over the CF Card board you have, and see if i can get any insight into getting my PCMCIA port going, I think they are related.

I think I am just going to buy parts, Im sure the Eaterkit has some QC, I have heard horror stories about bad breadboards and cheap parts. I see breadboards on ebay for a $1 for an 830 rack, and I know some of those are $7-8 if they are a good brand. You get what you pay for. Im setting up a 'budget' of ~$100' to compare to the kit offered, so far, Im a little ahead on the cost of breadboards, and getting:

a nice TwinIndiustries 2390 point with a metal backplane and extra top rail, mounting posts etc or similar Jameco board for about $25
For wires Im looking at $15 on a generic kit, I have one or two somewhere, with a handful of Pots and a wand of 555s for circuitbending. Im getting one with an MB-102 board power supply, again I have one "somewhere" and they are really nice. The kit I am ordering will have lots of buttons to create the actual interface I want, 4 way D-Pad, 2 Main input keys and 2 extra key, this leaves a few in the kit for RESET and such.
I found a really nice 160*96 LCD 4bit greyscale "monitor" for under $15 on digikey. So far I am at about $65, and that leaves ~$30-35 for chips, oscillators and shipping.
I'll still need an eeprom flasher of some type, and may buy a dedicated unit (like with a warranty) that was built by several people better at it than me. I do not have to get one 'this month', and maybe get that module plasmo is talking about and either use it on the breadboard, or use some perfboard from one of the IC kits to wire one up.

I am in no rush. I have some time and need to do things right. I might try several variations.