Thanks to everyone that came to #BringAHack last night after Maker Faire Bay Area 2016! We had a fantastic time checking out everyone’s imaginative projects.Laen loved the silk screen surprise from Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist:And we loved the...
On and off I post videos on my YouTube channel - such as amateurish electronics, and a bit less amateurish 6502 hacking. I'm partway through some series on playing music on a 6502/6522 homebrew computer, and using SD cards with 6502/6522-based...
The lion kingdom's 1st language was C64 BASIC, then 6502 assembly, then logo, then Applesoft BASIC, then GW Basic, & many years later, C, the 6th language. It was extraordinary to finally be able to express the machine's native instructions in...
Memory was expensive in the days when the Sym-1 was released. The boards were shipped with 1kB of RAM (2 "2114" of 4bits by 1024), but could have another 6 of 2114s to be plugged in without any extra hardware required. The memory chips were not only...
A few years ago, I created a small project to get a NCR 65C02 running on a breadboard. A Teensy 2.0 was responsible for generating the cpu clock signal, while I was using a Teensy 3.1 as a ROM programmer. Inspired by the RC2014 project, I wanted to build...
[by Bill Herd]My introduction to electronic manufacturing was as a production technician at Pennsylvania Scale Company in Leola PA in the early 1980’s. I learned that to work on what I wanted to work on I had to get my assigned duties done by noon...
Absolutely hated any higher level language than assembly as a kid. Programming was only a means to draw fast graphics, rather than an end or a way to make money as taught nowadays. The outcome of the act was the key. Assembly language was the only...
(Being a list of projects I'd like to work on some day)C62 - expanding my existing C61 design to add useful amounts of program memory and an interrupt system.C121 - a 12-bit RISC machine with a fully featured ISA.C181 - an 18-bit RISC machine, hopefully...
The Sym-1 SBC has a short, but chequered history. The concepts that were built into the Super Mon 1.1 have subtly influenced the very well designed BBC Micro and laid the seeds for the ARM line of computers. Its major bottle neck though was not having...
The Sym-1 was created by Synertek in the age of Teletypes ASR-33 when they were pretty much the best "golden standard" interface available for some, and for others the cheapest was the ubiquitous Hex keyboard and display. Well it was 1978, or thereabouts,...
The Sym-1 was a SBC, built by Synertek from around 1979 when it started to become popular, and while the name does not roll off the tongue of people who become nostalgic about computers of this era, due to the quality of its design and build, it...
So yeah, I now have a working 6502 mini cpu board but no IO... And still no crystal :S And before I go on and build more modules, let me test this puppy out first. This is my personal doomsday device... TeensyIO, connected to the IO/65 CPU module ;)...
The Sym-1 had a comprehensive expansion strategy with both I/O (3 6522 PIAs and a 6532 RIOT) and memory. The board was shipped with 1kB RAM and this could be expanded "on-board" to 8 2114 Static RAM chips to 4kB onboard. (It also allowed write protect...
The Sym-1 SBC was at the cutting edge of the growth of the 8-bit micro computer. It had very good expansion capabilities for I/O but initially relied heavily on the Cassette Recorder as the medium for saving and loading programs. When programs...