A Cassette Interface for a 6502 Breadboard Computer, Kansas City-Style

It’s been a long time since computer hobbyists stored their programs and data on cassette tapes. But because floppy drives were expensive peripherals and hard drives were still a long …read more Continue reading A Cassette Interface for a 6502 Breadboard Computer, Kansas City-Style

A 100th Birthday Celebration for the Flip Flop

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of creation as we’re building our latest widget. By the same token, it’s sometimes difficult to fully appreciate just how old some of the circuits we use are. Even the simplest of projects might make use of elements that were once a mess on some physicist’s or engineer’s lab bench, with components screwed to literal breadboards and power supplied by banks of wet-cell batteries.

One such circuit turns 100 years old in June, which is surprising because it literally is the building block of every computer. It’s the flip-flop, and while …read more

Continue reading A 100th Birthday Celebration for the Flip Flop