[HN Gopher] Running Apple 1 software on a breadboard computer (W... ___________________________________________________________________ Running Apple 1 software on a breadboard computer (Wozmon) [video] Author : irsagent Score : 113 points Date : 2023-06-03 17:02 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com) | minedwiz wrote: | The only youtube channel that I "hit the bell" for. | lagrange77 wrote: | I'm building his SAP-1 8-bit computer, it's an amazing | experience. | sho_hn wrote: | I've done that too. The real fun start when you expand it with | bigger memory, add a stack pointer, make the ALU a bit more | capable by swapping in different chips, etc. Very rewarding | project. Like doing nand2tetris, it completely demystifies | computers to many programmers. | | It also gives you RSI issues from bending solid core wires if | you're not careful. Take breaks! :-) | | And you can stuff it in a frame and have some cool wall deco! I | eventually added a boot loader and "punch card reader" to mine | which works with some photo diodes. I print out a programming | strip on an ink jet and can slide it through the reader to load | a program. When I have geeky visitors I give them a program to | load. | | Ben Eater may just be one of the greatest educators of his | generation. There's going to be so many good old engineers 20 | years from now who trace it all back to his videos. | lagrange77 wrote: | > It also gives you RSI issues from bending solid core wires | if you're not careful. Take breaks! :-) | | Too late :D | | > And you can stuff it in a frame and have some cool wall | deco! | | Right, i have already got a ground plane to mount it on. Do | you have a glass/acrylic plate on your frame like this | https://monster6502.com/ ? | | > I eventually added a boot loader and "punch card reader" to | mine which works with some photo diodes. I print out a | programming strip on an ink jet and can slide it through the | reader to load a program. When I have geeky visitors I give | them a program to load. | | That idea is really cool, maybe i'll try that too in the | future! I have thought about adding a diy discrete UART of | some sort. Oh and upgrade it to an SAP-3 in the future. | DowsingSpoon wrote: | Ben Eater is a treasure. His videos are educational and | entertaining. His project kits are excellent. Highly recommend. | russellbeattie wrote: | It's been said many times here before, but Woz's "annus | mirabilis" from March 1975 to April 1977 when at just 26yo, he | designed, implemented and launched the hardware, kernel, sound | and color output as well as a BASIC interpreter (and much more) | for the Apple I and II is one of history's greatest technological | achievements. It was a tour de force of talent which is | astounding to this day. | | And Ben Eater has taught me more about how computer hardware and | software work at the lowest level than any other resource I've | come across in my 25 years in the tech industry. Truly inspiring. | tambourine_man wrote: | And in 78 he did the Disk II. Also an incredible feat, truly | hardware economical and flexible in software, in the best Woz | style. | | It arguably turned the Apple II into a serious business | machine, because few people could withstand working with | cassette tapes. | [deleted] | retrac wrote: | The Apple 1 ROM is quite a tight piece of coding. Just 256 bytes | which implements basic console IO, and memory editing in hex. And | still two bytes left over. Legend is Woz wrote it directly in | machine language. One version with lots of comments: | https://github.com/jefftranter/6502/blob/master/asm/wozmon/w... | | You can see a classic assembly language space optimizing trick at | PRBYTE. It first prints the upper half of the byte in hex with | call to the PRHEX procedure, then falls through to PRHEX again to | print the second half. | analog31 wrote: | Indeed, an assembler, and a computer to run it on, were | luxuries in those days. I'll bet a lot of early code was hand | assembled. It wasn't too hard on 8 bit machines. I coded on | grid paper. In reality, all it took was a few dozen lines of | code and I was simultaneously hooked on coding, and motivated | to earn enough money to buy a computer of my own. | | In addition to having access to computers, even just being able | to get a copy of any software and do anything with it were a | bit of a hurdle if you had started at the chip level. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-06-03 23:00 UTC)