Boot into a simple integer BASIC program, capable of interactively editing and running its own programs.Be fast enough to run interesting programs interactively.Be capable of running “real” programs, not a 4-bit CPU or toy machine.Keep the hardware complexity to a minimum.Build the CPU from scratch, primarily using basic 7400-series logic.Around this foundation is built a full computer with support for a keyboard, sound, video, and external peripherals. It does not use any commercial CPU, but instead has a custom CPU constructed from dozens of simple logic chips. The Hardwareīig Mess o’ Wires 1 is an original CPU design. It was a big mess o’ wires.Ĭonstruction is documented in 100 blog posts, ranging from the original idea through dozens of setbacks to a final demo for thousands of people at the 2009 Maker Faire. I decided to build a homebrew CPU computer of my own. Projects like the Magic-1, D16/M, and Mark 1 FORTH Computer showed me the way. To create such a computer required a detailed microarchitectural design, custom instruction set design, custom software tools like assemblers and compilers, and of course a custom circuit board or three populated with lots of fat DIP chips and a big mess o’ wires. I had stumbled onto the world of the homebrew CPU. No Pentiums or PowerPCs here– these people built their own CPUs from the ground up, along with the memory subsystem, I/O, and everything else the computer required. More recently, I learned of various projects to build simple computers similar to those 80’s machines, constructed entirely of discrete logic chips like counters, adders, flip-flops, and NOR gates. But at the end of the semester, it was all torn down, I went on to a career in software, and that was that. I even built a rudimentary computer on a prototyping kit built into a suitcase: MIT’s infamous “Nerd Kit”. In contrast to today’s PCs, the computers of that era were inviting to tinkerers, with a comparatively simple hardware design and a BASIC prompt at boot-up.Īs a computer engineering major in college, I learned the details of digital logic design. I could PEEK and POKE those machines like nobody’s business, and I spent countless hours writing programs, playing games, or just fiddling around. Gregg Lemke on Yellowstone Universal Disk Controller for Apple IIīack in early 1980’s, I lived and breathed the world of the Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, and their brethren.Hightray on Floppy Emu Disk Emulator for Apple II, Macintosh, and Lisa. ![]() Steve on Floppy Emu Disk Emulator for Apple II, Macintosh, and Lisa.John Payson on NMOS 6502 Phantom Reads, Odd Yellowstone Bugs.Jeffg on The Amazing Disk II Controller Card.Yellowstone Universal Disk Controller for Apple II Floppy Emu Disk Emulator for vintage Apple II, Macintosh, and Lisa
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