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Category Archives: Hardware
VIC-20 Adventures: The Return Journey
An Update Five Years in the Making Back in May 2020, I wrote about a collection of text adventures I’d created for the Commodore VIC-20 between 1983 and 1984. At the time, I reflected on those six games—two released, four … Continue reading
Posted in Commodore, Commodore, Uncategorized
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The Quest for the Sun
In September 1986, I found myself in year 10 at a regional high school in New South Wales, eagerly anticipating my work experience at a local computer shop called RAMROD. The store manager, Greg, was an absolutely awesome guy who … Continue reading
Posted in Atari ST, ATARI ST, Programming, Retro, STOS
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BBS and beyond
On Monday, June 30, 1986, we launched Comm-Link BBS for the Gosford Commodore User Group (based in Gosford, NSW). Over the past six months, I had worked on designing, programming, and conducting extensive testing to reach the point where users … Continue reading
Posted in 8 Bit Computer, BASIC, Commodore, Programming, Retro
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Programming Books for Retro Machines
Over the past 4 years I have been on the look out for some programming books for the retro machines, computers and the original classic consoles from the early 1980’s when I stumbled across an author named Oscar Toledo G. … Continue reading
Posted in 6502 Assembly Lanuage, 8 Bit Computer, C, Hardware, Programming, x86 Assembly Lanuage
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STM8 BASIC
Well continuing on from my last post with an Arduino Nano running TinyBASIC with it 1k of memory I’ve gone one step further and picked up an STM8 BASIC dev board (STM8S103F3 Microcontroller) which is running BASIC and has 611 … Continue reading
Posted in Hardware, Micro controller, Software
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TinyBASIC Arduino
I’ve been playing around with TinyBASIC Arduino Nano tonight and hooked up a blue LED and had it flash. D13 is connected to 330 resistor to positive LED and negative to GND.Also saved it to EEProm on chip using ESAVE … Continue reading
Posted in Hardware, Micro controller
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SC131 ‘Z80’ SBC
I’ve had this item on my to do list since 1991 and at the time I got hold of some great books on the topic and sketched out some basic designs I never found the time to design/build my very … Continue reading
Posted in 8 Bit Computer, CPM, Hardware
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Modern Retro Computer
A couple of new Arduino Nano’s arrived in the mail today so decided what better time to build a modern retro computer about as powerful as a ZX80 Spectrum from 1980. Total cost about $40. The Nano on the left … Continue reading
Posted in 8 Bit Computer, Hardware, Micro controller
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Retro Computer Kit
Early in September 2019 while on holidays in London I had a couple of free days available and decided to head north to Cambridge to visit the Centre for Computing History which was having an event day. Hidden away in … Continue reading
Posted in 8 Bit Computer, BASIC, Hardware, Retro
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ATARI ST Adventures
It was 1989 and the Atari ST series of home computers were selling very well in Australia (also the UK) and I was having a great time learning to program the ST (1040 STFM) using STOS. For a little history, … Continue reading
Posted in ATARI ST, Hardware, Programming, Software, STOS
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