I have had this domain for a few years now, with the intention of starting a blog to talk about technology and to document any interesting projects that I made. At the time I think I had just started building a Rapsberry Pi based robot with the kids.
The robot did eventually get built, though the kids dropped out along the way. One of these times maybe I will get them to have more interest in the creating side of technology. They are rabid consumers of tech, but have shown only limited interest in how it works.
I currently have two related projects going on. A little while back, I was watching videos on YouTube and the Algorithm led me to a video called, “‘Hello, world’ from scratch on a 6502 – Part 1″. It was a video on how to write the ubiquitous Hello Word, but when the author said, “from scratch,” he really meant it!
The video starts by introducing the 6502 microprocessor. As you move through the series of videos, you setup the 6502 on a breadboard. You connect it to a ROM chip for program storage. You connect it to a RAM chip for program memory. Eventually you hook this all up to a 2 line LCD display that you use to display, “Hello, world.”
This looked like a fantastically fun project and the video creator, Ben Eater, sells kits on his website that you can use to follow along with the video series. I ordered a kit and a few days later it arrived.
I am slowly working my way through the tutorial. Here is a video of a clock module I built for the 6502 computer. This is from another video series Ben has, where he builds a CPU “from scratch.”
The clock has two modes. It can automatically pulse at an adjustable frequency, or it can single step. In the video, the blue light is the clock pulse. The blinking yellow light is the adjustable frequency pulse. The center yellow light indicates if the clock pulse is tied to the adjustable frequency or or to the stepped mode (off means it is in stepped mode, on means that it is in adjustable frequency mode). It uses a few 555 ICs for debouncing the buttons and switches and for the adjustable clock frequency. It also uses a few logic ICs (an AND gate, an OR gate, and a NOT gate).