Making a home computer!

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Socoder -> On Topic -> Making a home computer!
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 10:27
Krakatomato	For the past few months I've been depressingly busy with work; on a few occasions working over 48hrs with little to no break. It's been soul destroying and mentally and physically tiring. Thankfully, I'm at the end of this hell and have surfaced back into the fresh air. All ready to do anything but work! I'm still working with Rob Fearon to bring pretty games to the PlayStation platforms, but I also needed something else that wasn't coding. What could I do. Hmm. Well, I do have lots of electronic bits 'n' bobs at home and a love for all things 8-bit. So, I figured it would be fun to re-live the 80's by building my own 8-bit home computer! I'm just waiting for a few more components to arrive before I actually make a start proper, but I have designed some of the basics. So the plan is a 6502 processor (maybe a 65816 later), an AY-3-8910 for the sound and a Gameduino for the graphics (mostly because that's bitch hard to do!). I don't for a minute think this is going to be easy, but what the hell. Time to have some retro fun Will keep you all updated on progress with the odd piccie here and there. //Andy
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 10:40
rockford	Sounds cool Do keep us posted on progress and whatever comes out of this beast
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 10:42
Krakatomato	I'm not sure 'beast' is the right word, but will certainly update on progress
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 11:08
Krakatomato	Here's a pic of the 65C02 along with its big brother 65C816 - all ready to be blown to smithereens
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 11:54
Jayenkai	Genuine props to anyone who can do anything barely electrical! I always wished I'd gotten into electronics as a kid, because alongside all the coding, I'm sure I could've done something .. .. not shit! Sounds like a fun project. Can't wait to see the result -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 12:03
Krakatomato	I did electronics at college and then a degree at University but haven't really touched it (apart from the odd small project) for years. This will be my first foray into the "serious" stuff for a long time. Worst part is that I can barely remember any 6502 ASM, so writing the OS is going to be fun, fun, fun Funny thing - I wanted to use the AY-3-8910 chip for sound generation, but they're like £10+ on ebay. Mooched around and found that the YM2914 was used in the Atari ST's - which is basically the same chip. Then I came across an auction selling 10 Atari ST motherboards for £10.00 - pretty much scrap as there's barely anything left of them - except the YM2914. That will do nicely - 10 quid for 10 of them That arrives tomorrow and I just know that wifey will be so pleased with me
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 12:35
Jayenkai	LOL! Awesome!!!
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 15:37
cyangames	Sounds pretty amazing, keep us updated ðŸ˜€
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 16:04
steve_ancell	I played around with electronics in my younger days, I even did City & Guilds 2240 and passed the exams, and yet I never got into playing around with processors. \|edit\| I did play around with logic ICs though. \|edit\|
Mon, 27 Apr 2015, 17:35
rockford	I did CSE electronics at school, but the teacher made it all seem so boring I couldn't be arsed to take it any further. I really wish I had now though.
Tue, 28 Apr 2015, 00:11
Steve Elliott	Cool project! Good luck with it
Tue, 28 Apr 2015, 10:20
Krakatomato	My Atari "scrap" turned up today: Wife isn't best pleased, but I am - there's 11 boards here and 10 of them contain this beauty: There's some other little goodies on each board too, but I think that will come down to how bored I get using the desoldering tools
Tue, 28 Apr 2015, 10:47
Hotshot	Why do you prefer ST Sound chip than any other sound chip like c64 or Amiga?
Tue, 28 Apr 2015, 10:51
Krakatomato	When I did my degree I built a cheap synthesizer built on the AY-3-8910 chip. It's dead easy to use. The ST chip is effectively the same one so it's all familiar
Tue, 28 Apr 2015, 15:12
Steve Elliott	My Atari "scrap" turned up today: Oooh, hate to hear the Atari ST described in this way. And sod the wife, you deserve a hobby lol. -=-=- Intel Core i5-4590 @ 3.2GHZ 8Gb RAM, NVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2Gb, Windows 8.1 64-bit.
Fri, 08 May 2015, 16:57
Krakatomato	Messed around a fair bit, but eventually got the sound chip interfaced to a Raspberry Pi! Using a Pi to drive this was a royal pain in the arse and I ended up rewriting the code a few times, but it works quite nice now! View on YouTube (Apologies for the crap sound quality - the speaker is from a rubbish laptop and is all I had available!). After taking the video I pulled everything out of that breadboard all ready to start building the actual 6502. Unfortunately, I managed to snap off the bloody SD card slot on the Pi - ARGH. Anyway, onwards and all that
Sat, 09 May 2015, 04:14
Jayenkai	Crazy load of wires
Sat, 23 May 2015, 15:19
Hotshot	How it going?