Collaborate Disseminate
As part of his computer science curriculum at Texas A&M University in the early 2000s, [Paul Krizak] took a computer architecture course on the basics of their functioning. This and …read more Continue reading Wire Wrap Odyssey: a 7400-series Homebrew 8-bit Computer
Sometimes, hacking is just for the pleasure of diving into the secrets of old hardware. That was very much the case when [glitch] and a friend started hacking on some …read more Continue reading Old Barcode Scanner Motherboards Live Again
Feeling nostalgic we presume, [Glen Kleinschmidt] set out to build a 640x480x64 VGA controller card from discrete logic chips. If we ignore the 512Kx8 Cypress SRAM video memory, he succeeds, …read more Continue reading VGA Graphics Card in 74xx Logic
Sometime around 2009, [J. Clark Scott] published a book aimed to demystify computers for everyone by walking through construction of an 8-bit CPU from scratch. The book had a catchy, but somewhat confusing title But How Do It Know?. The back story on the title goes something like this: …read more
Continue reading Build an 8-bit CPU to Know “But How Do It Know?”
Not satisfied with any of the DIY retro computer kits on the market, [Leonardo Leoni] decided to make his own. Built using only the finest through-hole technology and powered by the ATmega328 microcontroller, his diminutive 8-bit computer is easy to build and even easier to develop for. Whether you’re looking …read more
Back in the days before kids could be placated with a $50 Android burner phone, many a youngster was gifted a so-called “educational computer” to keep them occupied. Invariably looking like a fever dream version of the real computer their parents didn’t want to let them use, these gadgets offered …read more
Continue reading Teardown: VTech PreComputer 1000 is an Iconic PC in a Toy Wrapper
The early history of microprocessors is a surprisingly complex one, with more than one claimant for the prize of being the first, and multiple competing families. That the first commercially available part was the Intel 4004 is a matter of record, but it’s fair to say that few of us …read more
Continue reading Back To Where (For Most Of Us) It Started, The Intel 8080
Did you ever start a project that you felt gained a life of its own? This project by [Paulo Constantino] is an entire CPU named dreamcatcher on breadboards, and is a beautiful jungle of digital. On top of that, it works to connect to an analog VGA display. How cool …read more
Continue reading CPU Made From 74HC Chips Is A Glorious Mess
It might look like a random pile of wires to some, but it is far from random: [Paulo Constantino] built this 8-bit CPU himself from scratch. He built his remarkable creation using wires and 74HC shift register chips, plus a selection of LEDs to show the various registers.
Running at a maximum of 5MHz, it has an 8-bit data and address bus, although the latter can be expanded to 16 bits. It’s not mining Bitcoin (yet), but it can do things like play the Mario theme. His latest addition is the addition of the ability to write data out to …read more
The ’80’s and early ’90’s saw a huge proliferation of “personal” computers, spawning an army of hacker kids who would go on to hone their computing chops on 8-bit and 16-bit computers from brands such as Sinclair, Commodore, Acorn, Apple, Atari, Tandy/RadioShack and Texas Instruments. Fast forward to 2017, and Raspberry-Pi, BeagleBone and micro:bit computers reign supreme. But the old 8-bit and 16-bit computer systems can still teach us a lot.
[Lee Hart] has built the amazing Z80 Membership Card — a Z80 computer that fits in an Altoids tin. His design uses generic through hole parts mounted on a …read more
Continue reading The 1980s called – asking for the Z80 Membership Card