This 6502 Computer Project Is A Work Of Art

August 21, 2017 by Jenny List 30 Comments

If you were a home constructor in the 8-bit era, the chances are that if you built a microcomputer system you would have ended up with a bare printed circuit board and a terminal. If you were on a budget you might have had a piece of stripboard as well, or maybe even wire-wrap. Beautiful cases were out of reach, they came with expensive commercial computers that were not the preserve of impoverished hobbyists.

Constructing an 8-bit machine in 2017 is a much easier process, there are many more options at your disposal. There is no need to make a bare PCB when you have a 3D printer, and this is demonstrated perfectly by [Dirk Grappendorf]’s 6502 computer project. He’s built from scratch an entire 6502 system, with a text LCD display, and housed it in a case with a keyboard that would put to shame all but the most expensive commercial machines from back in the day.

But this is more than just a hobby project thrown together that just happens to have a nice case, he’s gone the extra mile to the extent that this is professional enough that it could have been a product. If you’d been offered [Dirk]’s machine in 1980 alongside the competitors from Apple and Commodore, you’d certainly have given it some consideration.

We’ve seen retrocomputers too numerous to mention on these pages over the years, so if they are your thing perhaps it’s time to draw your attention to our VCF West reports, and to our reviews of computer museums in Germany, and Cambridge or Bletchley, UK.

Thanks [Colin] for the tip.

8-bit Computer For On-The-Go Programming

June 16, 2017 by Bryan Cockfield 13 Comments

If there was one downside to 8-bit computers like the Commodore 64, it’s that they weren’t exactly portable. Even ignoring their physical size, the power requirements would likely have required a prohibitively large power bank of some sort to lug around as well. The problem of portability has been solved since the late ’70s, but if you still want that 8-bit goodness in a more modern package you’ll have to look at something like retrocomputing madman [Jack Eisenmann]’s DUO Travel computer.

The computer is based around the ubiquitous ATmega328 which should make the ease at which it is programmable apparent. Even so, its 14-button keypad makes it programmable even without another computer. While it has slightly less memory than a standard C-64, it’s still enough for most tasks. And, since its powered by a 9-volt battery it doesn’t require any external power sources either.

The most impressive part of the build, however, is the custom programming language specifically tailored for this platform. After all, a 14-button keypad wouldn’t be a great choice if you had to program in Perl or C all the time. There is some example code on the project page for anyone interested in this specific implementation. While it’s not the most minimal computer [Jack] has ever built, it’s certain to be much more practical.

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Homemade Computer From 1970s Chips

June 16, 2017 by Bryan Cockfield 39 Comments

Sometimes it starts with a 555 timer and an op-amp. Other times with a small microcontroller. But the timing’s not so great and needs a dedicated timing crystal circuit. And maybe some more memory, and maybe the ATtiny should be swapped out for some 74LS-series chips. And now of course it needs video output too. Before you know it, you’re staring at a 40-chip computer that hearkens back to a simpler, yet somehow more complex, time of computing. At least that’s where [Marcel] is with his breadboard computer based on 1970s-era chips.

For what it does, this homebrew computer is relatively simple and straightforward. It gets 8 bits of processing power from 34 TTL chips. Another 6 round out the other features needed for the computer to operate. It is capable of rendering 64 colors in software and has more than enough memory for a computer of this sort. So far the only recurring problem [Marcel] has had has been with breadboard fatigue, as some of the chips keep popping out of the sockets.

This is a great project for anyone interested in homebrew or 8-bit computing, partially because of some of the self-imposed limitations that [Marcel] imposed on himself, like “only chips from the 70s”. It’s an impressive build on its own and looks to get much better since future plans call for a dedicated PCB to solve the issue with the worn-out breadboards. If you’re already invested in a project like this, don’t forget that the rabbit hole can go a little deeper: you can build a computer out of discrete transistors as well.

Friday Hack Chat: 8-Bit Micros With Microchip

June 7, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 20 Comments

A few years ago, Microchip acquired Atmel for $3.56 Billion. There are plenty of manufacturers of 8-bit microcontrollers, but everyone makes 8051s, and the MSP430 isn’t as popular as it should be. Microchip’s acquisition of Atmel created what is probably the largest manufacturer of 8-bit micros, with a portfolio ranging from ATtinys smaller than a grain of rice to gigantic PICs.

This Friday, we’re hosting a Hack Chat with the Technical Marketing Engineer of 8-bitters at Microchip. If you love AVR, this is the guy to talk to. If you’re still rocking the vintage 1993 PICkit, this is the guy to talk to.

On the docket for this Hack Chat are some new PICs and some very interesting peripherals coming down the line. ADCC — A2D with computation — is on the table, along with configurable logic cells. This Hack Chat is also going to go over Microchip design tools like MP Lab Xpress.

Of course, these Hack Chats are a question and answer session for the community. We’re encouraging everyone to ask a few questions about what Microchip is doing. We’ve opened up a discussion guide for this Hack Chat. If you have a question, just add it to the list.

If you can’t make the Hack Chat, don’t worry. We’re going to have a transcript of the entire chat. That should be available here shortly after the chat concludes.

Here’s How To Take Part:

Our Hack Chats are live community events on the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This hack chat will take place at noon Pacific time on Friday, June 9th. Here’s a fancy time and date converter if you need timezone help.

Log into Hackaday.io, visit that page, and look for the ‘Join this Project’ Button. Once you’re part of the project, the button will change to ‘Team Messaging’, which takes you directly to the Hack Chat.

You don’t have to wait until Friday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about

A Mini-ITX Atari 800

May 13, 2017 by Jenny List 21 Comments

As a community has grown up around the 8-bit microcomputers of the 1980s, there have been some beautifully crafted rebuilds of classic machines to take advantage of newer hardware or to interface to peripherals such as keyboards or displays that were unavailable at the time. Often these have taken the form of small boards, or boards that are designed to follow the form factor of the original machine, and fit in an original case.

[mytekcontrols] has taken a different tack with his Atari 800 build, he’s produced an Atari clone designed to take the most popular upgrade boards produced by the 8-bit Atari community, as daughter boards. And he’s followed an existing form factor, though it’s not one from the Atari world. Instead, he’s made it as a mini-ITX motherboard of the type you may well be familiar with from the world of PCs.

He’s calling it the 1088XEL, because with a popular 1MB upgrade board fitted it boasts a generous 1088k of memory. It sports the original five Atari LSI chips, and manages the task without resorting to surface-mount construction.

The forum thread linked above is a long one that makes for a fascinating read as it deals in depth with the design of an 8-bit micro clone. But if you want to skip straight to the hardware, start at about page 13.

We’ve had more than one 8-bit Atari on these pages over the years. Most memorable though is probably this laptop.

Thanks [Lenore Underwood].

Another 74XX Series CPU

March 28, 2017 by Adil Malik 13 Comments

[Jack Eisenmann] is no stranger to building impressive DIY CPU’s on vast stretches of breadboard. This time [Jack] has done away with the seventeen breadboards he used in his last 8-bit computer and instead has gone a step further and designed a set of generously utilised PCB’s for the CPU. The result is the DUO Enterprise.

The CPU design is based around an 8-bit data bus and a 24-bit address bus. As usual, a minimal yet carefully chosen instruction set allows [Jack] to do all the heavy lifting in software as part of the compiler and operating system he is working on. There is no sign of a display yet, instead the computer communicates via a dumb terminal. We love the aluminum foil for shielding! Check out the video, below, to see what we mean.

Over the years, we have seen many of [Jack]’s other CPU builds featured on Hackaday. One of his first designs was a 4-bit CPU that could play many games on a LED matrix.Later he did a much more impressive 8-bit CPU along with analog video output and an OS ofcourse. It could even play pong. He even built a Single Instruction Set Computer (SISC).

His final goal with DUO Enterprise is to allow anyone to utilise its computing power by submitting programs and calculations. Heads up [Jack], our neural net needs training soon.

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Talk Like A Game Boy, Sting Like A Beep

March 12, 2017 by Lewin Day 5 Comments

Have you ever listened to a song and wondered how they created the robotic-sounding vocals? There’s a huge variety of ways to do so. [scythe1005] decided to take their inspiration from rock history, creating a Game Boy powered talkbox (Japanese, Google Translate recommended for those that don’t speak the language).

Human speech is generated when vibrations from the vocal chords are shaped into intelligible sounds by the motion of the mouth, tongue, and other body parts known as “articulators”. A talkbox creates robotic speech sounds by using the articulators while replacing the vibrations from the vocal chords with alternative source.

A talkbox is a device most typically used with the electric guitar. The signal from the electric guitar is amplified and played through a speaker or transducer connected to a tube that is placed in the user’s mouth. The user then proceeds to mouth the desired words they wish to say, with the vibrations provided by the guitar’s signal instead of the vocal chords. A popular example of this is Peter Frampton’s use of the talkbox in Do You Feel Like We Do.

[scythe1005] used the same basic bones in their design, using a Game Boy to feed sound into a basic audio amplifier kit and a transducer connected to a tube. This gives a very 1980s synth sound to the vocals. It’s a simple build in concept but one we haven’t seen a whole lot of before. Using off-the-shelf modules, you could build something similar in a weekend. Also featured in the video is an ArduinoBoy — a useful way of controlling a Game Boy over MIDI. It’s used here to interface the keyboard to the handheld console. Video below the break.

As we’ve seen before, the Game Boy is an incredibly popular platform for music — chiptune artists regularly modify the device for better sound.

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