COSMAC VIP (RCA 1802) first try at low level coding with some HAKMEM 149 1-bit drawings (128x64), ~134 bytes program, some of it taken by the high res mode setup.
Also wrote a #cosmacvip (and related) low-level coding quick start article : https://www.onirom.fr/wiki/codegolf/cosmac_vip/
A fun computer for its simplicity and extensions / variants, Chip-8 (or Forth ?) may be cool to experiment with as well. (1802 is kinda unusual !)
The program runs fairly quickly in the emu.
Probably because the age counter keeps ticking up relentlessly I became nostalgic to build a retro computer based around the very first CPU that introduced me to (and started my career in) computers, the CDP1802 (which is still in production at Renesas!). That must be about 45 years ago...
Just sent the first PCB designs to JLCPCB. With some luck the adventure can start again somewhere next week.
Also, wouldn't know how to achieve this without #kicad
You know it's a really special time when your spouse encourages you to breadboard that COSMAC 1802 and make it work on the weekend...
I shall be doing that, unless something comes up.
about to build this electronic name badge, which is slightly magic in that it can display a 32 character scrolling message but has no external RAM at all.
It uses most of the CDP1802 processor's 16 registers for storage. These 1902 types, what will they come up with next?
We spent the downtime at VCF East trying to get the COMX-35 to completely* fill the screen with randomly-placed asterisks. This was somewhat hampered by us having no COMX BASIC manual. We thought it couldn't be done ...
Thanks to the amazing Emma 02 emulator, it turns out it's possible and we were doing it wrong. We had no manual, though
--
*: except for the last char position, for $reasons
At Joyce Weisbecker's Cosmac audio talk at VCF East
@waltermixxx sounds like a plan and a nice way for the work to live on. The COMX/COMiX 35 could definitely benefit from more homebrew hardware addons out in the wild.
The RCA Studio II was an early games console. Its cartridge slot had two huge metal spikes at each end.
It turns out they are for static protection. The Studio II used CMOS chips which are very easily zapped. The cartridges have a sprung metal comb which shorts out the contacts when the cartridge is out the machine. When you insert the cartridge the spikes push the comb out the way, allowing the ROM contents to be accessed.
#RetroComputing #RCA1802 #RCAStudioII #gamecart #electronics
@scruss @waltermixxx #rca1802 #comx35 #comix35 Hiya Walter (and Stewart)
Any time spent on the COMX-35 or the @tubetime recreation COMiX-35?
I'd built a COMiX-35, it was a great experience, but I never finished off entirely as I had no "modern and convenient" storage solutions for it.
COMiX-35
https://github.com/schlae/comix-35
There is a floppy drive controller project here -> https://github.com/wel97459/COMiX-FloppyDiskController
grz0zrg
cocoacrumbs
Sonikku
Stewart Russell
radventure