Sorry, couldn’t help myself. That’s sorta cool. Very retro. Makes me want to pull my 1970’s EE Desk reference and build something out of it. If only they would have built a giant retro bell(I’m thinking Liberty Bell sized) to wake up by. I know I need something like that!

Posted at 11:26 am on Dec 5th, 2005 by The Tech Department

The C64 didn’t use a 6502. It used a the 6502’s first cousin, the 6510. IIRC it had some I/O feature that the 6502 didn’t.

Is anal-retentive spelled with or without a hyphen?

Posted at 12:00 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Dick

That is correct. It was a 6510. Clock and IO pin additions.

Patrick

Posted at 12:39 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by PK

Whoops, you’re right, I didn’t pay close enough attention to my reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers_by_category

Posted at 12:50 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Eliot Phillips

“Don

Posted at 1:22 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by tiuk

This reminded me of the Futurama episode where Farnsworth makes the F-Ray flashlight thing that lets you see inside things. Someone pointed it at Bender’s head and it showed a chip inside marked 6502. A good portion of Hackaday readers probably got the joke, but I wonder how much of the general audience got it. :-)

Posted at 1:40 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by IMWeasel

Need a life? That’s a fine way to do things. There’re many parts I’ve needed to make, particularly ones that only need modeling in 2 dimensions, where I’ve simply printed up my CAD drawing 1:1, taped it onto the piece of flat stock, and started milling. As long as you don’t need really accurate parts (think 0.005″) it’s an easy way to save time.

Posted at 1:49 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Billytheimpaler

What era are the nixie tubes from? Would it be possible to do this project completely with parts from that era? The size would probably be enormous, but isnt that part of the art?

Posted at 2:05 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by brian

#6: doing the counting/timing logic with tubes would be a real pain, but on the other hand you could use things like dekatrons, which are neat in and of themselves.

Posted at 3:13 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Wim L

So now all you need to do is somehow attach it to your wrist ;-)

Posted at 3:35 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by geeker

Very cool hack. I have some tubes somewhere, propbably not 6 though. (But who needs seconds)

Posted at 4:55 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by John Bokma

wow, how i wish i could make one.

Posted at 5:58 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Linkincable

Re geeker’s comment

Nixie watch
http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/watch.html

Posted at 6:00 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by collin

Does anybody know where i could get nixie tubes? I’ve been looking for a way to display current CPU load on my server, and this would be a really sweet way.

Posted at 9:12 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by madd_matt

Nixie’s for sale here http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/nixies.html

Google nixie for more sources and info

Posted at 10:23 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Forrest

What about making our own Nixie like display wiht El Wire http://www.elwirecheap.com/index.html

Posted at 11:09 pm on Dec 5th, 2005 by Jim Watters

I’ve got an old motherboard, some ram, and an old 60 gig hd. Could you show me something really cool that I could do with it… Besides the obvious…. Home made magnetic card readers, rocket bikes that run on vegetable oil, Useful things would be cool. The cooking with processors and other things have been getting a little dry. You guys have got to be more creative… A real lifesaver… I challenge you folks to assemble a real lifesaver like in star wars… You have the brains, C’mon rise to the challenge……..

Posted at 12:39 am on Dec 6th, 2005 by Fly Swat

what the hell? if you want to be a real hacker, you’ve gotta do it yourself. Get off your ass, get out your soldering iron and your multimeter, and hack that motherboard until it’s an anti-gravity unit or something badass like that. jeez.

Posted at 2:50 am on Dec 6th, 2005 by alex

re: comment 17

A lifesaver? a “real lifesaver like in star wars” huh? is that anything like a “lightsabre”?

Or did Star Wars contain some Titanic-esque water rescue scene I’m unaware of?

Posted at 12:21 pm on Dec 7th, 2005 by Dom salvador

I would just like to clarify something. Actually the C-64 did use a 6502… in its 1541 floppy drive. So, I think the original post is in fact correct. Go eliot. :-)

Posted at 8:55 am on Dec 9th, 2005 by PK