Fresh hacks every day
Those of us that run Linux on a modern or nearly-modern PC know that it's a capable operating system. It's also (at least in my case with Ubuntu) extremely easy to install on a semi-modern computer. On a mid-90s era PowerMac 7200, things aren't quite so simple. In a testament to both his technical ability, and possibly even more so his tenacity, [Chris] was able to get Debian 6.07 running on … [Read more...]
Here's a way to play around with simple computing concepts without going too crazy with the hardware side of things. [John Eisenmann] calls it the DUO tiny. It's a programmable computer based around the ATtiny84. He wrote the operating system himself, building in a set of commands that make it quite functional, but allow the user to manipulate or even write the programs using the four button … [Read more...]
What if we told you we had a computer you can take with you? What if it only weighed 28 pounds? This is a pretty hard sell when today you can get a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor packing computer to carry in your pocket which weighs less than 5 ounces. But back in the day the Donner 3500 was something to raise an eyebrow at, especially for tinkerers like us. The machine was unveiled in 1959 as … [Read more...]
When you're building one of the best homebrew computers ever created, you'll also want a great case for it. This was [Simon]'s task when he went about building an enclosure for his Kiwi microcomputer. We were introduced to the Kiwi last year as the end result of [Simon] designing the ultimate computer from the early to mid-1980s. Inside is a 68008 CPU, similar to the processor found in early … [Read more...]
The screenshot on the right shows [Quinn Dunki's] computer project displaying a Hello World program. Well, it's only showing the word Hello right now, but the concept is the same. This proves that native 6502 code is running on the processor and reliably outputting data through its VGA hardware. That's a welcome achievement after watching so much work go into this project. But with anything … [Read more...]
If you've ever looked into low-level parallel port access you may have learned that it only works with actual parallel port hardware, and not with USB parallel port adapters. But here's a solution that will change your thinking. It borrows from the way printers communicate to allow USB to parallel port bit banging without a microcontroller. Sure, adding a microcontroller would make this dead … [Read more...]
[Mark] is just starting off on his own 6502 computer odyssey. He was inspired by some of the other projects we've seen around here, like [Quinn Dunki's] Veronica Project, but with a spin that leverages modern processors to alleviate some of the messy work. As you can see above, there's an Atmel chip perched above the 65C02 processor. This chip not only feeds the processor data (through all those … [Read more...]
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