[HN Gopher] Running Apple 1 software on a breadboard computer (W...
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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.
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