When I joined the Army in 1974 I wanted to be an electronics technician. But due to my color blindness I ended up in a combat unit. I’ve always thought I couldn’t do electronics but I started with Arduinos and now I am assembling boards, and doing other things. That is to say, I am glad to have run into your video and see what you did. I am very inspired and thank you.
What kind if qualifier does colour blindness have? Who made up that system? I've always been an electronic hobbyist and I am slightly colourblind, never stopped me before. Whoever invented that system is shit, colourblindness being a qualifier for electronics make no sense since most cables are the same colour anyway.
I would have thought it was the other way around. But I guess not. I am also enjoying my journey, resumed as an adult, once I found my chosen profession 😅😅
"I'd probably try to design it myself but..." And here you are almost 2 years later, designing such a thing yourself, and having a team helping out making it a reality.
You know what, I’m kind of into the whole Commander 16 idea, but (for me) it’s just too obsolete. I was pumped to discover they put the emulator on Github. I’m running it already! I will definitely run this on a Raspberry Pi (more likely, Win 10). What I really need is one of those Commander PS/2 keyboards though. Honestly, that’s all I need. Actually, it might work better for me if it was USB... or Bluetooth...
@@Grunchy005 what would you need it to do that makes it obsolete? The modern Internet didn't exist during the 8 bit era, but the world still spun... But what if the world stopped spinning? Would you be able to build your own Windows 10 PC? Commodore offended MOS, so they basically created the entire computer down to bare components in house. Would you even be able to mock up a system capable of running a 64 bit system and send it to a Fab to produce? Theoretically, if things fall apart, you could scavenge an 8 bit system from parts if needed to help rebuild society. So let's explore what you mean by obsolete, and flesh out the details.
@@eusebiusthunked5259 If society collapses I think the last thing on anyone find useful is programming on a 8 bit computer. Gardening might be a better skill to have in that scenario.
@@as-jp5cl gardening for food crops? If society has collapsed far enough that food distribution networks no longer function and you're reduced to subsistence farming for survival, then you're probably a great target for aggressive scavengers and poachers. Hunting would probably be a better skill at that stage. Unless you have neighbors who are willing to defend your garden, you're not going to be able to maintain that. If society is structured enough that specialization and division of labor can allow a society to rebuild and develop, then human scale information technology is going to be necessary to organise the information, especially to recover the majority of information which is organized in digital form since card catalogs aren't even kept anymore in many libraries. If things go dire enough that you need to garden to survive, then you're not going to survive as a Gardener. If things get shaken up, we need to be able to build society without depending on Asian imports, and most people aren't going to recreate the list ancient traditional ways of organization. We have become a digital species, we need to learn how to build and maintain basic digital systems or else we can no longer consider our society ours.
@@eusebiusthunked5259 have you ever tried to extact data that was made and stored from a modern computer via a 8 bit machine running basic? And I'm not talking about transfering code designed to run on that 8 bit machine in the first place. Try opening a word doc or excel database with it... Nothing that would be useful has been stored on one of those machines for decades. You would be better off stockpileing spares for modern pc systems in your chosen scenario. I doubt its possible for our global society to somehow revert back to a very specific time in the 1980s and then stabilise. If we fall back we are going straight back to a pre digital world. Thought if you have plans for a post apocalypse chip fab I would love to hear it.
As a professional electronics engineer, let me tell you: your tutorial is GREAT. I can't do better. Camera and macros are great. Audio dubbing: perfect. Overall very high quality. BIG thumbs up. As always. Max
Totally agree, these videos are fantastic. I watch for entertainment, a lot of this is stuff I'm already familiar with, but it's really nice to see someone doing a great job and being very patient and careful about how they are presenting the information. I wish I had resources like this to learn from when I was getting started. Thanks for helping out the new batch of nerds 8-Bit!
Agreed. I work as an electronics engineer in science for 11 years and I also must say that I really enjoy these tutorials. Very good production and I do not have any complain about approach to technology here.
The only minor nitpick: the soldering iron is a bit too hot for the soldering composition Dave uses. You may see tiny balls of metal boiling off and jumping away from the soldering needle - it isn't supposed to happen.
Yes, a big part of the appeal in building your own kits like this is the experience itself. I'm an amateur at this hobby myself, but it's always exciting to spend an hour on building up a board, plugging in the power, and having things come to life. Honestly, I've been burned, I've accidentally broken off parts, I've even been temporarily blinded by an errant solder splash, and I've had some failed kits. But, it's always fun to take a crack at one, and I'm considering picking up one of these more complex boards.
Oh, yeah! I used to have to do that with entire tubes of RAM chips (how you bought them in those days) to populate memory cards and bring machines up to a whole 640K of RAM. whoo, hoo. Good times!
I've watched this video several times and I don't mind seeing it again because the quality of his work is inspiring. It's well organized and the filming of the tiny parts is very good.
Maybe you could make a text-adventure style version of Tetris... "You see four blocks above you, shaped like an L. It's turned 90 degrees clockwise and falling. " -> "MOVE LEFT AND MOVE LEFT AND DROP BLOCK"
lol Kind of wish someone would make an "all in one" chip, like, you would have to still have a ROM, for which ever "system" you where running, but given the crazy stuff that a modern CPU has on it, there is no reason why almost everything, and I mean everything, from memory, to video (and/or maybe a VGA like emulation of which ever sort of system you are trying to do, so an Apple II version would have the same crazy "two colors together make white, with a fringe of other colors", display - which even emulators fail, in most cases, to emulate), to serial, etc. I mean, literally the *only* thing you wouldn't have "on chip" would be the ROM(s), for the system, and some sort of maybe selector pin/pins, which determine which systems its emulating. I would love an Apple IIc, for example, "in a pocket", which wasn't a bloody software emulation, which can't connect to a real Apple drive, and can't read a disk from one (if you still had a few floating around). But, I guess a full on board is OK too. lol
they do work for some people, and you should be able to try them free .. so i don't get it why it gets dismissed so easily , unless having already a valid reason for it
I think this board has more capability than used yet. The Parallax Propeller is a bit of a beast in this system, it has 8 32bit cores (called "cogs") and could easily handle more complex VGA (RGB) graphics.
2:06 Wow, I didn’t know you were colourblind! You did a great job with the stickers for the mini arcade machines and when you redid the lables for the cartridges
Yeah, why not? Yes, I am Czech, and we make some guns.. However one side effect is that in one region there is an ammo warehouse explosion like once a year.
Being a kid born in 98 and craving all these 80's and early 90's knowledge and tech makes me love this channel all too much. This is even better, making old tech out of new. Hell yeah.
As someone who had no choice but to use the available tech of the 80s and 90s, let me tell you, things have gotten much better. Sure, I miss radio shack, but I don't miss paying $9 for a single red LED. Computing back then was insanely expensive and also difficult. Nowadays, we use command lines to do something special. In the bad old days, a command line was your only way to interface.
@@TrapperAaron You know, I can totally see where you are coming from. Getting access to tech and equipment is a lot cheaper and easier than it was back then, however, i know less computers because of it. If I had to learn how to navigate with the terminal, I would be much more profficient in my computing tasks. I feel like im still missing a major part of computing when I barely can comprehend how to use modern terminals.
For stuff like the resistor pack I use blue tape. Easy on, easy off and it holds the part down. And I've done boards with a few hundred solder joints so no issues there.
I absolutely love your videos, and this one is no exception. Just a tiny hint for you from someone who has been soldering for 30 years... Try not to put the solder onto the tip first and then onto the joint. Heat the joint by placing the iron tip so it's touching both the lead and the pad, then apply the solder to the other side of the lead and pad, trying not to touch the tip at all. This will ensure a much better quality joint as you are making sure both surfaces are properly heated.
Yes, I remember I did some Frankenstein soldering on a mod for my old TRS-80. Later on the guy at Radio Shack saw it and set me straight on how to do it right!
Excellent, but you CAN change individual characters on the screen despite it not having a memory-mapped display. With a serial display (as in a 'dumb terminal') a character will always be drawn to the right of the cursor, so all you need to do is move the cursor to the point on the screen before you want to display a new character. Cursor control can be effected via 'escape sequences' or 'control sequences'. I used to do this as a programmer in the 1970's onwards. I can't remember many of the control codes, but one which will always stick in my mind is 'control-G' (or '^G') to sound the bell/buzzer or, on serial-port cash registers, open the cash drawer. Some of the old dot-matrix printers, and even some daisy-wheel printers, used to respond to the same codes which allowed you to draw pictures on them.
You know I was thinking the same thing -- only if the kit supports them, and I'm sure if it didn't the propeller chip could be programmed to do so... Your comment reminds me back in the 80's when I wrote programs on my school's mainframe (DEC-10) with various terminals (Hazeltine, ADDS, etc.) at 1200 baud, and I remember needing to use the screen cursor control through escape sequences, such as Escape-2J to clear the screen as well as positional code sort-of using the ANSI VT100, but it did a lot of stuff. The low baud rate necessitated using these controls as redrawing the screen each time would be painfully slow... but for this application, I prefer a memory addressable screen! Still, the VIC-20 screen and joystick I/O had a few idiot/painful design "flaws" that caught me several times... you don't forget those things... scared for life I guess... LOL
Yes, control codes will likely allow the screen to be controlled. Control-L will probably clear the screen, and Control-H is usually backspace. Escape codes are the other possibility.
+Tatsh2DX 92% of their cell towers and 45% of their cell sites are operational, so +everybodyhasmine might be using cellular Internet. It's power that's lagging way behind. Only slightly over 43% have power. (It'll be months before everyone has power again, or so they say.)
"Hard for me despite colour blindness." *Is making game and has to make sure colours look nice.* For real, colour blindness is a real consideration when desgining something.
I have revisited this video a number of times as I enjoy the 8-bit guy's videos and the integration of a single board computer is just interesting to me. Some folks can work the issues of system integration to create a unique product with some older but still available technology and it is interesting to view the result. The only thing that has rubbed me wrong about the computer is the inclusion of pin style sockets for the integrated circuits ... what is wrong with providing double wipe sockets meant for dip chips with 'rectangular' pins .... sigh .... some kits probably do have double wipe sockets as it may just be a component sourcing issue at the time of kit production ... I would replace each pin socket with a double wipe socket for cheap $ and convenience.
I joined the New Zealand Army in 1979 as an apprentice radio tech. There were about 6 of us that started that year. Early on in the programme we were learning resistor colour codes and all of us had the same resistor in our hands. The instructor asked one of the guys the colours on his resistor and he came up with something completely different to what we all had. Within a week, he was an apprentice vehicle mechanic.
Interesting. Whenever I'v seen WDC on a IC of any kind it stood for Western Digital Corporation. That's a bit confusing at the least, but I guess the company had few other options.
WDC is also responsible for the far less popular 16-bit extension, the 65C816... which had about three total design wins. Some C64 accelerator I don't remember the name of, the Apple IIgs, and the Super Famicom. It's really an odd decision why Nintendo went with that chip, given that it resulted in the explosion of bespoke SNES coprocessors every developer used...
IC Socket are mainly used to keep the ICs safe from heat during soldering as most ICs are not made for handling that much heat for a long time. And of course it is used for other purposed too, which you explained in the video. Anyways, great job.
Actually that’s only the case for a rare number. You should always solder, them alternating to avoid too much heat build up. My college teacher (studying electronics), was lead engineer at ESA and they soldered all the ICs to prevent because at launch or geo stationary spinning rapidly it could dislodge the, from the socked. Ever since that lesson I pretty much soldered every cheap IC.
When manipulating the leads on components, I’ve found it’s best to use something as a block to avoid stress fracturing tack welds or component internals. Usually I use a pair of tweezers as it’s easier to know exactly where I’m manipulating the lead. This process also give a more professional finish. Hope that tip helps some of you guys.
A couple of tips (and yes, we make commercial stuff here). First of all, use the flux. No, flux-core solder is not enough. Yes, it will be messy and require some cleaning, but this way you can just carry the molten solder across a set of pads without handling the solder wire itself, which already is a good thing while strong and smooth joints are the actual goal, also drag soldering will become an option. By the way, if making through-hole connections, apply the flux to the both sides of the PCB (it will likely just flow through on it's own anyway, however) so while soldering a part the other side will be tinned as well (keep track on the solder - when it starts to flow down the hole, that is the moment when the part is properly connected). Also, personally myself I do never clip the pins beforehand. Instead, make some draft joints (not necessarily on every pin - just to keep each part in place, flux not really that needed at that point), then clip the pins (depends on the board, though for the common two-sided boards with plated holes I prefer to clip them very close to the surface leaving somewhat 0.3~0.5mm, not more) - and finally solder them properly (while redoing the draft joints as well). This way the bottom side will be very smooth and coating-friendly should you decide to, and you'll never cut your fingers while handling it, which is also a neat thing. Also I don't really understand placing all the ICs into sockets - should it die, you can just desolder it (which isn't that frequent nor difficult ;) ) - but using no sockets and just soldering the ICs in (even on prototypes) will save you the trouble of looking for a bad connection, also the height will be much lower (do not solder the EEPROMs and such though ;) ).
Hello Today I had watched your video about Microprocessor 6502. In 1987 I had also assembled 6502 BASIC computer. Your video remembered me my old memories. Thanks a Lot. Atul😀
I mean, the corner fold will still follow the length of the staple but pages will just turn upwards more... which is fine, unless you're the staple Nazi's!
You would hate teaching High School kids. I get papers stapled 3 inched in and 3 inches down with no parallel or 45 degree angle. Usually 270 degrees to the mark.
Pro Tip: For reading text on tiny components, most smart phones can zoom in and focus on things that are 3-4 inches away. You can actually use a smartphone as a SMT inspection microscope. I use the Magnifier tool in the "Army Knife" Android app as it lets you control the flash as an objective light.
Helyx525 I've never heard of that app before and I'm baffled that something like it doesn't come as a preinstalled app out of the box on most phones. Thanks!
I can tell you what still uses 6502, airplanes. Since they are super reliable and do not require cooling it makes them perfect to use in those applications.
I can imagine a lot of situations where a simple microprocessor is a good idea to use. Any task that requires low level hardware control that's well suited to a AVR or PIC is also equally well suited to the 6502. Unless you need built in ADCs, then the best choice is a AVR like the 328P or a PIC that has a ADC.
Benjamin Woodruff Actually, that does make a lot of sense. For critical systems, you want the most reliable, rugged, and time tested components, not necessarily the newest. Up until their last days of flying, the Space Shuttles used old computers. Even after they modernized the cockpit displays and instruments, the main flight computer was still based on very old designs. That's because it's not concerned with fancy graphics and sounds, just taking readings from sensors and controlling the rudder, ailerons, gimbal, etc. No need to have a newer, more fancy processor sucking up power and making heat when something simpler will work better.
theLuigiFan0007 I wonder if any car computers use a 6502 processor? I mean the computer that controls the timing, fuel pump, etc. (Although car engines shouldn't have so many freaking electronics!)
Think the web page states that they are available for purchase at the moment. Other that this one there are a few alternatives available as well, made this one github.com/tebl/RC6502 as a fun project after watching Ben Heck build one. The SBC version should be 5$ fabricated from Seeed using the gerber files, adding parts and a cheap Arduino Nano it should total around 30-40$ depending on parts used.
"..It doesn't matter if resistors go one way or the other, but it is nice to put them all in the same direction..." Thanks, you saved my OCD right there. #ResistorsHavePolarity
Reason why your pins bend is because you bent them in on thin part instead from thick part where they come out of chip. Put them all flat on table and hold chip for casing and push up and bend them all at same time.
I enjoyed your video on the PE6502. Having built it myself I can confirm that this is a little versatile 8 bit computer that is the best of retro and new technology. My favorite basic game on this machine has been StarTrek2003
That's pretty funny having a Parallax Propeller as the video chip. It's way more powerful than the 6502 main CPU! It's got eight 32-bit cores which run up to 80MHz.
Indeed.. I had a laugh about that too. It's more powerful than the CPU by far. But the issue is finding a video chip these days that works with 8-Bit CPUs is really tough. So microcontrollers often end up being the simplest solution.
The 8-Bit Guy Can the propeller "terminal" understand some cursor movement codes, like many dumb terminals (and small text LCDs) do?. Those codes may not be the Apple ones, but that shouldn't matter for new programs you write. The Creative Computing programs were published in book form with a preface saying they were for Microsoft Basic (the old one, not qbasic), and deliberately avoided machine specific cursor commands etc.
The thing I've been curious about, ever since I saw a real Apple I, is what sort of hardware/software mod would be required to output more than one byte of data to the screen per video frame. Real Apple I computers are too rare and precious to mod in such a fashion, but I would expect that the shift-register-based video could be updated much faster with the right code and possibly a hardware mod to enable it. The Apple uses seven 1024-bit dynamic shift registers to hold the display contents, and continuously circulates data through them. One of them is used to track the cursor position, and a multiplexer is used to load data from the CPU at the spot where the cursor is located. If the CPU were to wait for the start of a frame and then counted cycles, I would expect that it could determine when each byte of display data would be circulating through the shift buffer and force the proper data into the shifting pattern at the right times.
I suspect there're home-build computers out there with USB and etc that you could find on eBay. They call kits like that "suites", so try searching using that keyword and also perhaps "DIY" also. They come from China on a literal "slow boat" so they don't get here quickly, but they're cheap and the people making them have VERY CHEAP access to parts you might not expect, so take a look.
Wow, I didn't know you're color blind. I wonder how it affects your everyday life. Thinking back you did a great job with the repro cartridge stickers, the colors were spot on even on the hand-made stickers!
Being that I seem to only have issues with Brown and Purple, I can see everything else. I can even see those two colors but it has to be very pure with a lot of light. So I have a mild form of colorblindness. But so does 10% of the male population. Many people don't even realize they have it.
Modern games usually have these settings so you don't mistake your enemies with your teammates in real time matches, don't think that would be super necessary in older games.
@Undefined Lastname Thanks for the advises but I know how to solder or desolder I just meant that if you bend the legs of the components to the side, it's harder to desolder them other than if legs are straight because even if there is just a bit of solder left, the component won't just fall out. It's just something I often do experience. But anyway.
Coming from a guy that has been working on electronics since 1979. Masking tape. A small bit of masking tape on the component holds it in the board for easy soldering. For example the resistors. Put them all in, lay masking tape over them, flip and solder. No burnt fingers, no leads going off at weird angles and all components are tight against the board. Masking tape peels off without leaving residue and is not a super strong adhesive, perfect for this application.
I have the feeling that there will be many people complaining about your soldering technique. But it is not too bad in my opinion. I used to do the same with the solder wire, move the board under it. Then, I bought a small pair of helping hands. And I tend to do it as Clive does: Hold the board, component and solder in one hand altogether... Nice project. I just ripped apart 3 old ISDN telephones tossed away by someone containing character displays with tons of datasheets for it. I am sure I could do a lot with it but I just have no real need for such a de ice at the end. To me, it is a bit more fun to see you doing all the work.
Yeah, it's fine. For the sockets though, I'd do one corner, then the other corner diagonally opposite, sort of just to help position it. A big plus on using leaded solder as well. The fumes are just flux/rosin boiling, not actual molten lead coming up to your nostrils. Although, I do find lead-free solder flows better for joining larger gauge (say, 14AWG) wires together, or to copper connectors, like XT60. Everyone has opinion on everything though heh.
I also can’t say that his soldering was really bad, but I would for sure recommend using thinner soldering tip and heat the pad before putting solder on it :)
6:49 Note that you can also find pin 1 easily by looking at the corners of the housing, pin 1 is located at the pointy corner. The other corners are around.
One of the things I like to do with components that take a lot of stress of plugging and unplugging stuff is put a small drop of hot-melt glue under them. This is a tremendous help in keeping from peeling up traces on the board.
This reminds me a bunch of the Replica 1 that was produced in the late 2000's. It tried to be nearly one-to-one to the original apple 1, including expansion interfaces to plug in a casette interface card(if you have one). I haven't had a chance to work much with mine, but a project in the back of my mind has been to create a new interface card that adds in a video chip, and a rudimentary card that will allow you to play a single octave of notes on a piezo.
It may actually be possible to connect the ACI (Apple cassette interface) to the pe6502, because like you said it has the full bus expansion port. If you (or the creator) just created an adapter from the pe’s expansion port to the Apple 1’s, and then connected the ACI, you could load programs from cassette.
I had an Acorn Atom, it was my first venture into the nitty gritty of hardware and software, if anyone else remembers, it came with 1kbyte of memory for basic and 1kbyte for the display map, but what I really enjoyed about the Atom was the assembly language, remember that first basic prog for a bouncing ball?, I did that in assembly, I was blown away by the difference in speed, I even built a 16kbyte addon board for it using 6116 2kbyte static ram chips I pulled from old arcade machines, the 6502 to this day is still one of my favorite cpu's.
I don't think of them as nerdy mainly because jigsaw puzzles aren't very challenging. I think he meant to convey something repetitive and mindless. requiring little skill. IDK though.
Dave, I love your channel. I grew up with the Vic 20 and C64. I don't know why it took me so long to find/get around to watching this particular video. But man, for all of us that have been trained in the military as Electronics Technicians (specifically for me, in the US Navy Nuclear field), you are causing me to cringe everytime you just bend the leads on these components to make them fit on the board! Yeah, yeah, I get it, you aren't repairing a mission critical piece of equipment, but there is such a thing known as stress relief that requires you to bend at the radius of the through holes to allow for thermal expansion and contraction... Holy cow man...I know...OCD installed into my psyche by the US Navy. Lol. But I love your channel! So much nostalgia! Good stuff... Nice soldering iron by the way. I have a Haako also, but an older version. All black and comes with a key card to prevent changing the temp (meant for assembly lines)...
I have a tip for soldering things: tape them down. You don't need 3 hands, you need some painter's tape to tape the components to the board. Some components are also coated in resin, so you'd have to cut the access before soldering which makes tape a godsend.
The proper method for assembly is to fit the lowest first and then go up in heights. If you use a foam pad to hold the parts in place. the pressure will hold the lower components and you can press against the desk too. On the LED, you didn't mention that there is a small flat on one side for orientation.
Out of all of those chips, the MAX232 is the one you want socketed more than any. It is the one which has sacrificial driver transistors that will die when absorbing a spike from an external serial device, instead of conducting it into the board/CPU/wherever.
This is an incredibly well-done primer for soldering components on a PCB. So far, I’ve only done a few antenna connectors and a couple wires. I’ve been wanting to get into a bigger project (this still seems a bit too advanced for me, although your skill level made it look real easy!).
Would be cool to see more stuff like this with lower cost , just with a cassette port using standard audio cables so any modern tape recorder could be used
Basically, yeah. Have you any idea just how much X-ray radiation comes out of an old 15khz monitor? Or the sheer amount of RF produced by an 8 or 16 bit computer, particularly with the lid off? To say nothing of all the copious static shocks, and that continual high-pitched whine... :D
It's physically impossible to listen to Dave Jones without one of those bat voice frequency shifters to bring Jones' whining, screeching squeak into the human hearing range ...
I started soldering 8-bit computers together recently and have made a couple so far. For beginners I would recommend the Z80-MBC2, it's a small PCB that only requires four IC's to get it running so the cost of parts is cheap. It's basically an Arduino-controlled Z80 and it can run a bunch of stuff from SD including Basic and CP/M. Something like the PE6502 in comparison is quite challenging due to the amount of soldering required. Still a fine system but not ideal for beginners.
I'm told that organic water soluble fluxes tend to be really active as well. So active, that if you leave them alone for too long they will dissolve copper traces. They're best suited for when you have pads that are really crusty with oxides, and even then you need to clean them off as soon as you've made the joint.
Hello from Farmers Branch! The best use for extra header pins is to use in other projects to hold 3v coin cells. It fits perfectly. Nice video as usual.
Did anyone else besides me dream of one day ordering a HEATHKIT computer from a catalog? I never did order one, but I sure dreamed about it. That was before we got our first Apple II.
What a fun channel! Thank you for all of your work....my comment is that whenever I watch a kit assembly video that speaks to beginners, there's little or no commentary about the importance and usefulness of flux when soldering....and just because a lot of solder on the market has a flux core is not a reason to leave it out. I've learned the hard way to have a tube of flux available just in case it would help improve the results I'm getting! (by improving heat conduction)
Three years late, I know, but here is one small tidbit of general advice that came to mind: If you need to solder two 16-pin chips, but you only have one socket, it's a good idea to check which of the two has (more) external connections, what they are (input or output), and how likely it is that you might have to replace a chip. Looking at the PE6502 assembly instructions, I can see U10 (MAX232) and U5 (74HCT138N) are both 16-pin chips. The 74138 address decoder chip has technically also an external connection (to the expansion port), but all pins connected to it are output pins, so they should be a bit more robust. The MAX232 however goes via a serial cable to some other computer, and will be connected/disconnected a lot, the cable pins might also get static electricity (people touching them), etc. So I would probably have placed the MAX232 (RS232 level converter) into the socket. It probably does not really matter, as the MAX232 is a fairly robust chip, and even if it needs replacing, 16 pins are luckily not that many. Just wanted to state a reason why you might want to choose one chip over another for the 'privilege' to be placed a socket. And I saw on the Putnam site that they promised a Parallax upgrade to control the cursor position, but I don't know if they ever released it. :-)
As a 35 year electronics designer and adult instructor, my sad observation is that electronics is dying as a hobby and I wish that wasn’t so. When I was a kid, Henry Radio and Radio Shack, both gone, were places a hobbyist could go.. and Popular Electronics was a favorite read of mine. I only started designing because I discovered there was always one DAMNED COMPONENT I couldn’t find when I eagerly built my popular electronics projects. My level of experience has (fortunately) gotten more VLSI these days than those good old “discrete” days.
in 1988 I had a computer class and they had some TRS-80 color computer kits for us to assemble. We could keep them when we were done. Not to brag (I actually amazed myself) but not only did I finish my kit before anyone else in class, my computer was the only one that would work. The instructor asked to keep mine for the classroom since it was the only functioning one of the group.
I'm probably the umpteenth person to mention this but soldering components that want to slip out when you overturn the board is made much easier by pressing a blob of blue-tack beside or even bridging the component body to temporarily stick the component in place while you solder the leads on the reverse of the PCB. Great video, cheers.
Apply your iron, before the solder. Your technique is causing horrid joints. eg at 6:32. Just before 10:00 you do apply the solder correctly(apart from the first IC pin), and the result looks much better.
When I construct electronics I keep one of those peak electronics LCR meters on the bench and quickly measure the component values before soldering them in. Easy if you are tired to solder in a 100k resistor instead of a 10k. Also great for checking if you have a duff electrolytic, or something is way out of tolerance. I figure it’s worth the extra time to try to get things right 1st time rather than troubleshoot later.
14:15 That 6502 is stamped with 2011 as the year of manufacture, so it was not brand new, but rather, six years old when you were holding it in your hand. ;)
If only my thermocouple wasn't broke I'd measure the temp I use. Not sure how hot my butane soldering iron is but it probably exceeds 650 easily. It's also got a hot air tip (essentially a piece of catalytic honeycomb stuff in a tube) which heats things much more gently. I need to get a new K type probe and measure it. Besides heating up faster only other real benefits to a gas iron are that it's cordless and dosen't have the risk of leakage current killing sensitive ICs.
Yeah, in my part of the world, where we use Celsius, 260C (which is 500F) is more than enough to melt lead based multi-core solder. 750F is about 400 Celsius, which is going to quickly damage sensitive parts unless you are very quick. Normally you'd only want to go up to 600 - 650F when soldering things like the DC plug where large terminals are going to soak up the heat. But 750F is really just too hot for sensitive electronics work!
Greg Clare Around 700F is common on assembly lines, and is usually OK if you don't dwell on the solder pads for too long. But, it is maybe a tiny bit hot for more "hobbyist" use. btw - one of the common bad habits with soldering is adding the fresh solder to the iron first, then hoping it will flow to the pad / pin. You're supposed to keep the tip lightly tinned, but then heat up both the pad and pin, feed in enough fresh solder, let it flow fully, then remove the heat. Adding the solder to the iron first means that a lot of the flux will "boil off" before it has chance to fully do it's job of cleaning the solder joint. That can create dry solder joints, even if they look OK externally, and appear strong.
Yeah, I often do that on through-hole stuff, as it tends to make a better solder "fillet". www.rctech.net/forum/attachments/radio-electronics/533187d1261511217-how-solder-correctly-not-so-brief-lesson-solder.jpg This is still one of the best quick soldering vids I've found... th-cam.com/video/IpkkfK937mU/w-d-xo.html
$130 is too much for this computer. Woud be OK for x86 computer because you can actually use it for other stuff, but Apple 1 becomes useless afte you play with it enough.
These DIP packages are not produced in mass quantities nowadays, therefore they're really expensive. Some of them are not being manufactured anymore so they're really expensive. 130$ to buy brand new DIY nostalgia is not bad at all. Also, I must note that this is not the cheapest PCB you can get, in fact purple soldermask is quite expensive. Now they offer another PCB option that is lower in price.
@@hussssshie The 6502 CPU and the support chips that were made for it are still being produced today. the 65c02 the CMOS version can be purchased from mouser for $9.99. Apparently alot of industrial, scientific and medical equipment used the 6502 processor. That stuff is difficult to re-certify and has a long service life. The TTL and CMOS logic IC's are still available today for the same reason all in DIP packaging too :).
@@Shawn_White It's amazing to me that the 6502 is about $10 for "just" a CPU but an AVR microcontroller with built-in RAM, flash storage, EEPROM, clock etc. is $2-3.
Ok this is the perfect example of what people are thinking when you say "I built my own computer" Yea you fit the pieces into the same shape slot like a kid with a square peg. But man it seems like magic to everyone else.
When I joined the Army in 1974 I wanted to be an electronics technician. But due to my color blindness I ended up in a combat unit. I’ve always thought I couldn’t do electronics but I started with Arduinos and now I am assembling boards, and doing other things. That is to say, I am glad to have run into your video and see what you did. I am very inspired and thank you.
What kind if qualifier does colour blindness have? Who made up that system? I've always been an electronic hobbyist and I am slightly colourblind, never stopped me before.
Whoever invented that system is shit, colourblindness being a qualifier for electronics make no sense since most cables are the same colour anyway.
@@razi_man there's just a lot of stuff that you're not allowed to do if you're colorblind or near sighted or lots of other random things
@@razi_man
"Cut the red wire"
-"Roger that"
*boom*
_he cut the orange wire_
@@MuhammadAhmed-gm1bv 😅🤣😂🤣😅😂😂 Ka BOOOooooommmmmmm
I would have thought it was the other way around. But I guess not. I am also enjoying my journey, resumed as an adult, once I found my chosen profession 😅😅
"I'd probably try to design it myself but..."
And here you are almost 2 years later, designing such a thing yourself, and having a team helping out making it a reality.
You know what, I’m kind of into the whole Commander 16 idea, but (for me) it’s just too obsolete. I was pumped to discover they put the emulator on Github. I’m running it already!
I will definitely run this on a Raspberry Pi (more likely, Win 10).
What I really need is one of those Commander PS/2 keyboards though.
Honestly, that’s all I need.
Actually, it might work better for me if it was USB... or Bluetooth...
@@Grunchy005 what would you need it to do that makes it obsolete?
The modern Internet didn't exist during the 8 bit era, but the world still spun...
But what if the world stopped spinning? Would you be able to build your own Windows 10 PC? Commodore offended MOS, so they basically created the entire computer down to bare components in house. Would you even be able to mock up a system capable of running a 64 bit system and send it to a Fab to produce? Theoretically, if things fall apart, you could scavenge an 8 bit system from parts if needed to help rebuild society. So let's explore what you mean by obsolete, and flesh out the details.
@@eusebiusthunked5259 If society collapses I think the last thing on anyone find useful is programming on a 8 bit computer. Gardening might be a better skill to have in that scenario.
@@as-jp5cl gardening for food crops? If society has collapsed far enough that food distribution networks no longer function and you're reduced to subsistence farming for survival, then you're probably a great target for aggressive scavengers and poachers. Hunting would probably be a better skill at that stage. Unless you have neighbors who are willing to defend your garden, you're not going to be able to maintain that. If society is structured enough that specialization and division of labor can allow a society to rebuild and develop, then human scale information technology is going to be necessary to organise the information, especially to recover the majority of information which is organized in digital form since card catalogs aren't even kept anymore in many libraries.
If things go dire enough that you need to garden to survive, then you're not going to survive as a Gardener. If things get shaken up, we need to be able to build society without depending on Asian imports, and most people aren't going to recreate the list ancient traditional ways of organization. We have become a digital species, we need to learn how to build and maintain basic digital systems or else we can no longer consider our society ours.
@@eusebiusthunked5259 have you ever tried to extact data that was made and stored from a modern computer via a 8 bit machine running basic? And I'm not talking about transfering code designed to run on that 8 bit machine in the first place. Try opening a word doc or excel database with it... Nothing that would be useful has been stored on one of those machines for decades. You would be better off stockpileing spares for modern pc systems in your chosen scenario. I doubt its possible for our global society to somehow revert back to a very specific time in the 1980s and then stabilise. If we fall back we are going straight back to a pre digital world.
Thought if you have plans for a post apocalypse chip fab I would love to hear it.
As a professional electronics engineer, let me tell you: your tutorial is GREAT. I can't do better. Camera and macros are great. Audio dubbing: perfect. Overall very high quality. BIG thumbs up. As always. Max
David is the best I have ever seen.
Totally agree, these videos are fantastic. I watch for entertainment, a lot of this is stuff I'm already familiar with, but it's really nice to see someone doing a great job and being very patient and careful about how they are presenting the information. I wish I had resources like this to learn from when I was getting started. Thanks for helping out the new batch of nerds 8-Bit!
Agreed. I work as an electronics engineer in science for 11 years and I also must say that I really enjoy these tutorials. Very good production and I do not have any complain about approach to technology here.
How about cutting the pins after soldering?
The only minor nitpick: the soldering iron is a bit too hot for the soldering composition Dave uses. You may see tiny balls of metal boiling off and jumping away from the soldering needle - it isn't supposed to happen.
More motherboards should be purple.
They should.
Thank Oshpark for that!
More purple things should be motherboards
@@lozD83 Thanos motherboard
ECS made purple motherboards. You don't see them anymore. They left a bad name on purple boards.
Yes, a big part of the appeal in building your own kits like this is the experience itself. I'm an amateur at this hobby myself, but it's always exciting to spend an hour on building up a board, plugging in the power, and having things come to life. Honestly, I've been burned, I've accidentally broken off parts, I've even been temporarily blinded by an errant solder splash, and I've had some failed kits. But, it's always fun to take a crack at one, and I'm considering picking up one of these more complex boards.
Who else agrees that when the chips are inserted into the sockets its super satisfying
Yeah, unless a pin folds up. Then it’s like, “nooooooo!”
Oh, yeah! I used to have to do that with entire tubes of RAM chips (how you bought them in those days) to populate memory cards and bring machines up to a whole 640K of RAM. whoo, hoo. Good times!
Reminds me of when I insert my lead into her socket
Me, keys as well
It's even better when you're doing it yourself, especially when done perfectly
I've watched this video several times and I don't mind seeing it again because the quality of his work is inspiring. It's well organized and the filming of the tiny parts is very good.
Maybe you could make a text-adventure style version of Tetris... "You see four blocks above you, shaped like an L. It's turned 90 degrees clockwise and falling. " -> "MOVE LEFT AND MOVE LEFT AND DROP BLOCK"
Matt Kimball the final block isn’t a long rectangle... it’s “s” shape crashes into the block, shattering the game. You died.
"I'll be impressed when someone builds something like this that can run commodore BASIC"
2 years later
"Fine I guess I'll do it"
like thanos: Fine! I'm doing myself!
Yeah, really looking forward to the X16.
I hope they launch pre-orders soon.
@@SamuelVelter you ment"Im doing IT my self"
@Matthew Sbelgio you meant you meant you ment
lol Kind of wish someone would make an "all in one" chip, like, you would have to still have a ROM, for which ever "system" you where running, but given the crazy stuff that a modern CPU has on it, there is no reason why almost everything, and I mean everything, from memory, to video (and/or maybe a VGA like emulation of which ever sort of system you are trying to do, so an Apple II version would have the same crazy "two colors together make white, with a fringe of other colors", display - which even emulators fail, in most cases, to emulate), to serial, etc. I mean, literally the *only* thing you wouldn't have "on chip" would be the ROM(s), for the system, and some sort of maybe selector pin/pins, which determine which systems its emulating.
I would love an Apple IIc, for example, "in a pocket", which wasn't a bloody software emulation, which can't connect to a real Apple drive, and can't read a disk from one (if you still had a few floating around).
But, I guess a full on board is OK too. lol
Удачи и спасибо за проекты. Многие люди цветозрящие не готовы взяться за подобные проекты. Респект Вам!
2:32 have you heared of those special sunglasses that....
2:36 nevermind
Same thing went through my mind.
they don't work
They do work, but only for some types of color blindness.
they do work for some people, and you should be able to try them free .. so i don't get it why it gets dismissed so easily , unless having already a valid reason for it
I'm surprised he didn't ban you from watching his videos
I think this board has more capability than used yet. The Parallax Propeller is a bit of a beast in this system, it has 8 32bit cores (called "cogs") and could easily handle more complex VGA (RGB) graphics.
The propeller alone could probably be used to emulate the 6502..
2:06 Wow, I didn’t know you were colourblind! You did a great job with the stickers for the mini arcade machines and when you redid the lables for the cartridges
I had the benefit of the scanned originals so that I could use the color-picker tool to help me match the color.
soldering is basically small scale, low heat welding.
This is not called colourblindness, this is a decreased sensitivity of colours
In case you wondered, I have the same problems as him
+GKGameplay CZ Care to elaborate? I have same problem!
PS::I take it you are Czech? You guys make great guns, thanks :)
Yeah, why not? Yes, I am Czech, and we make some guns.. However one side effect is that in one region there is an ammo warehouse explosion like once a year.
8 bit guy: *Standard troubleshooting steps.*
Me: *START UP, YOU PIECE OF CRAP!*
K
What? It eats my favorite El Burro movie, it dies
Being a kid born in 98 and craving all these 80's and early 90's knowledge and tech makes me love this channel all too much. This is even better, making old tech out of new. Hell yeah.
Being born in 2000 myself, I agree. Hell yeah!
As someone who had no choice but to use the available tech of the 80s and 90s, let me tell you, things have gotten much better. Sure, I miss radio shack, but I don't miss paying $9 for a single red LED. Computing back then was insanely expensive and also difficult. Nowadays, we use command lines to do something special. In the bad old days, a command line was your only way to interface.
@@TrapperAaron You know, I can totally see where you are coming from. Getting access to tech and equipment is a lot cheaper and easier than it was back then, however, i know less computers because of it. If I had to learn how to navigate with the terminal, I would be much more profficient in my computing tasks. I feel like im still missing a major part of computing when I barely can comprehend how to use modern terminals.
For stuff like the resistor pack I use blue tape. Easy on, easy off and it holds the part down. And I've done boards with a few hundred solder joints so no issues there.
Exactly, use tape as the third hand. Makes it much easier.
kd1s ,
Painter's masking tape?
It's used for masking painting surfaces - it's blue in color and easy on, easy off.
So you like living dangerously I take it.
I appreciate the time you take to explain all the steps! Thanks Dave. Great video as always.
I absolutely love your videos, and this one is no exception. Just a tiny hint for you from someone who has been soldering for 30 years... Try not to put the solder onto the tip first and then onto the joint. Heat the joint by placing the iron tip so it's touching both the lead and the pad, then apply the solder to the other side of the lead and pad, trying not to touch the tip at all. This will ensure a much better quality joint as you are making sure both surfaces are properly heated.
Yes, I remember I did some Frankenstein soldering on a mod for my old TRS-80. Later on the guy at Radio Shack saw it and set me straight on how to do it right!
oh my god. how have I never thought about just measuring the damn things... I've been looking up ring codes for years!
Excellent, but you CAN change individual characters on the screen despite it not having a memory-mapped display. With a serial display (as in a 'dumb terminal') a character will always be drawn to the right of the cursor, so all you need to do is move the cursor to the point on the screen before you want to display a new character. Cursor control can be effected via 'escape sequences' or 'control sequences'. I used to do this as a programmer in the 1970's onwards. I can't remember many of the control codes, but one which will always stick in my mind is 'control-G' (or '^G') to sound the bell/buzzer or, on serial-port cash registers, open the cash drawer. Some of the old dot-matrix printers, and even some daisy-wheel printers, used to respond to the same codes which allowed you to draw pictures on them.
You know I was thinking the same thing -- only if the kit supports them, and I'm sure if it didn't the propeller chip could be programmed to do so... Your comment reminds me back in the 80's when I wrote programs on my school's mainframe (DEC-10) with various terminals (Hazeltine, ADDS, etc.) at 1200 baud, and I remember needing to use the screen cursor control through escape sequences, such as Escape-2J to clear the screen as well as positional code sort-of using the ANSI VT100, but it did a lot of stuff. The low baud rate necessitated using these controls as redrawing the screen each time would be painfully slow... but for this application, I prefer a memory addressable screen! Still, the VIC-20 screen and joystick I/O had a few idiot/painful design "flaws" that caught me several times... you don't forget those things... scared for life I guess... LOL
Yes, control codes will likely allow the screen to be controlled. Control-L will probably clear the screen, and Control-H is usually backspace. Escape codes are the other possibility.
These are all based on the standard ASCII character set.
Both my BBC 'B and my Epson RX80 had the full set from 0 to 127 at the back of the manual.
During this hard time after Hurricane Maria through Puerto Rico, your videos give me some sense of normalcy, keeps me from going insane, thank you.
everybodyhasmine how do you have Internet?
+Tatsh2DX 92% of their cell towers and 45% of their cell sites are operational, so +everybodyhasmine might be using cellular Internet. It's power that's lagging way behind. Only slightly over 43% have power. (It'll be months before everyone has power again, or so they say.)
If i live in the ring of fire i don't complain about the volcanoes do i?
I am also in Puerto Rico and cell towers are around 90% online. Power is around 40%. I have both fortunately
Immortal no so what?
"Hard for me despite colour blindness."
*Is making game and has to make sure colours look nice.*
For real, colour blindness is a real consideration when desgining something.
That 6502 is not made by Western Digital, but by Western Design Center, hence the WDC in the chip.
Yes, and they're in production because they still have their uses in some medical equipment
@@waltherstolzing9719and things like this
@@waltherstolzing9719 That's fascinating. But like what?
Edit: it's Automatic Defibrillators and unspecified life support systems
I have revisited this video a number of times as I enjoy the 8-bit guy's videos and the integration of a single board computer is just interesting to me. Some folks can work the issues of system integration to create a unique product with some older but still available technology and it is interesting to view the result. The only thing that has rubbed me wrong about the computer is the inclusion of pin style sockets for the integrated circuits ... what is wrong with providing double wipe sockets meant for dip chips with 'rectangular' pins .... sigh .... some kits probably do have double wipe sockets as it may just be a component sourcing issue at the time of kit production ... I would replace each pin socket with a double wipe socket for cheap $ and convenience.
I joined the New Zealand Army in 1979 as an apprentice radio tech. There were about 6 of us that started that year. Early on in the programme we were learning resistor colour codes and all of us had the same resistor in our hands. The instructor asked one of the guys the colours on his resistor and he came up with something completely different to what we all had. Within a week, he was an apprentice vehicle mechanic.
The WDC on the 6502 chip stands for Western Design Center, not Western Digital.
Interesting. Whenever I'v seen WDC on a IC of any kind it stood for Western Digital Corporation.
That's a bit confusing at the least, but I guess the company had few other options.
VWestlife Wow! You’re here!
Yeah my Western Digital hard drive is read as a "WDC" in my BIOS... that'll throw people off
I came here to say the same thing but you beat me to it. :-)
Great video. Thanks for uploading.
www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
WDC is also responsible for the far less popular 16-bit extension, the 65C816... which had about three total design wins. Some C64 accelerator I don't remember the name of, the Apple IIgs, and the Super Famicom. It's really an odd decision why Nintendo went with that chip, given that it resulted in the explosion of bespoke SNES coprocessors every developer used...
IC Socket are mainly used to keep the ICs safe from heat during soldering as most ICs are not made for handling that much heat for a long time. And of course it is used for other purposed too, which you explained in the video.
Anyways, great job.
Actually that’s only the case for a rare number. You should always solder, them alternating to avoid too much heat build up. My college teacher (studying electronics), was lead engineer at ESA and they soldered all the ICs to prevent because at launch or geo stationary spinning rapidly it could dislodge the, from the socked. Ever since that lesson I pretty much soldered every cheap IC.
When manipulating the leads on components, I’ve found it’s best to use something as a block to avoid stress fracturing tack welds or component internals. Usually I use a pair of tweezers as it’s easier to know exactly where I’m manipulating the lead. This process also give a more professional finish. Hope that tip helps some of you guys.
you mean for bending the leads on those caps to fit in better? yeah trying to do that by fingers is a bit of a pain in the ass
A couple of tips (and yes, we make commercial stuff here). First of all, use the flux. No, flux-core solder is not enough. Yes, it will be messy and require some cleaning, but this way you can just carry the molten solder across a set of pads without handling the solder wire itself, which already is a good thing while strong and smooth joints are the actual goal, also drag soldering will become an option. By the way, if making through-hole connections, apply the flux to the both sides of the PCB (it will likely just flow through on it's own anyway, however) so while soldering a part the other side will be tinned as well (keep track on the solder - when it starts to flow down the hole, that is the moment when the part is properly connected). Also, personally myself I do never clip the pins beforehand. Instead, make some draft joints (not necessarily on every pin - just to keep each part in place, flux not really that needed at that point), then clip the pins (depends on the board, though for the common two-sided boards with plated holes I prefer to clip them very close to the surface leaving somewhat 0.3~0.5mm, not more) - and finally solder them properly (while redoing the draft joints as well). This way the bottom side will be very smooth and coating-friendly should you decide to, and you'll never cut your fingers while handling it, which is also a neat thing. Also I don't really understand placing all the ICs into sockets - should it die, you can just desolder it (which isn't that frequent nor difficult ;) ) - but using no sockets and just soldering the ICs in (even on prototypes) will save you the trouble of looking for a bad connection, also the height will be much lower (do not solder the EEPROMs and such though ;) ).
Hello
Today I had watched your video about Microprocessor 6502. In 1987 I had also assembled 6502 BASIC computer.
Your video remembered me my old memories.
Thanks a Lot.
Atul😀
You had me at BASIC, and 115k and Hyperterminal.. Lesigh.. Nostalgia is the best..
ForSquirel He had me at Speak & Spell
1:46 You monster. Staple diagonally like a civilized person, so the corner fold follows the length of the staple.
I mean, the corner fold will still follow the length of the staple but pages will just turn upwards more... which is fine, unless you're the staple Nazi's!
It doesn't matter. Unless you have OCD.
I should have thought this in high school...
You would hate teaching High School kids. I get papers stapled 3 inched in and 3 inches down with no parallel or 45 degree angle. Usually 270 degrees to the mark.
They make a stapler that staples 45 degrees perfectly, it just has a little border so the corner of the paper is lined up
Pro Tip: For reading text on tiny components, most smart phones can zoom in and focus on things that are 3-4 inches away. You can actually use a smartphone as a SMT inspection microscope. I use the Magnifier tool in the "Army Knife" Android app as it lets you control the flash as an objective light.
Helyx525 I've never heard of that app before and I'm baffled that something like it doesn't come as a preinstalled app out of the box on most phones. Thanks!
David in 2017: I'd like want to made a modern computer with Commodore basic
David in 2021:Commander X16
putting this video together while you put a board together takes some real skill. hats off sir.
I can tell you what still uses 6502, airplanes. Since they are super reliable and do not require cooling it makes them perfect to use in those applications.
I can imagine a lot of situations where a simple microprocessor is a good idea to use. Any task that requires low level hardware control that's well suited to a AVR or PIC is also equally well suited to the 6502. Unless you need built in ADCs, then the best choice is a AVR like the 328P or a PIC that has a ADC.
Benjamin Woodruff The WDC ICs have a couple of bugs. I really wouldn't use it in important systems.
Benjamin Woodruff Actually, that does make a lot of sense. For critical systems, you want the most reliable, rugged, and time tested components, not necessarily the newest. Up until their last days of flying, the Space Shuttles used old computers. Even after they modernized the cockpit displays and instruments, the main flight computer was still based on very old designs. That's because it's not concerned with fancy graphics and sounds, just taking readings from sensors and controlling the rudder, ailerons, gimbal, etc. No need to have a newer, more fancy processor sucking up power and making heat when something simpler will work better.
theLuigiFan0007 I wonder if any car computers use a 6502 processor? I mean the computer that controls the timing, fuel pump, etc. (Although car engines shouldn't have so many freaking electronics!)
StarTrek123456 Good software programming can get around hardware bugs
These types of kits are a lot of fun to assemble. I'd love to know when these will be available!
Think the web page states that they are available for purchase at the moment. Other that this one there are a few alternatives available as well, made this one github.com/tebl/RC6502 as a fun project after watching Ben Heck build one. The SBC version should be 5$ fabricated from Seeed using the gerber files, adding parts and a cheap Arduino Nano it should total around 30-40$ depending on parts used.
The Obsolete Geek, I'm subscribed to you!
Tor-Eirik Bakke Lunde The link you posted gives a "not found" error.
The close parenthesis %29 needs to be removed from the end of the url.
The Obsolete Geek u suck
"It turned out to be "fly".. Lovely."
Elicited a chuckle, thanks.
"..It doesn't matter if resistors go one way or the other, but it is nice to put them all in the same direction..."
Thanks, you saved my OCD right there.
#ResistorsHavePolarity
That was a cool little kit!! Cool lesson on chips, resisters, capacitors and soder advice!!! Keep up with more vids 8 bit guy!
Reason why your pins bend is because you bent them in on thin part instead from thick part where they come out of chip. Put them all flat on table and hold chip for casing and push up and bend them all at same time.
I remember having a tool for setting the pins on a DIP to standard spacing.
Yes omg yes
I enjoyed your video on the PE6502.
Having built it myself I can confirm that this is a little versatile 8 bit computer that is the best of retro and new technology.
My favorite basic game on this machine has been StarTrek2003
That's pretty funny having a Parallax Propeller as the video chip. It's way more powerful than the 6502 main CPU! It's got eight 32-bit cores which run up to 80MHz.
Indeed.. I had a laugh about that too. It's more powerful than the CPU by far. But the issue is finding a video chip these days that works with 8-Bit CPUs is really tough. So microcontrollers often end up being the simplest solution.
The 8-Bit Guy Can the propeller "terminal" understand some cursor movement codes, like many dumb terminals (and small text LCDs) do?. Those codes may not be the Apple ones, but that shouldn't matter for new programs you write. The Creative Computing programs were published in book form with a preface saying they were for Microsoft Basic (the old one, not qbasic), and deliberately avoided machine specific cursor commands etc.
That's the only reason why I watched the video... the Propeller chip... what was it's function in this project.
14:17 Not to mention that 6502 (w65c02s6tpg-14) at hand can run at 14 MHz-s,
The thing I've been curious about, ever since I saw a real Apple I, is what sort of hardware/software mod would be required to output more than one byte of data to the screen per video frame. Real Apple I computers are too rare and precious to mod in such a fashion, but I would expect that the shift-register-based video could be updated much faster with the right code and possibly a hardware mod to enable it. The Apple uses seven 1024-bit dynamic shift registers to hold the display contents, and continuously circulates data through them. One of them is used to track the cursor position, and a multiplexer is used to load data from the CPU at the spot where the cursor is located. If the CPU were to wait for the start of a frame and then counted cycles, I would expect that it could determine when each byte of display data would be circulating through the shift buffer and force the proper data into the shifting pattern at the right times.
Great channel! Had a Commodore 64 in 1983! Loved watching all your commodore videos! I’d love to have a “hobby computer” back in the heyday!
Absolutely love all this obscure tech!! Watching you assemble these boards is very relaxing as well. Love your channel!
I suspect there're home-build computers out there with USB and etc that you could find on eBay. They call kits like that "suites", so try searching using that keyword and also perhaps "DIY" also. They come from China on a literal "slow boat" so they don't get here quickly, but they're cheap and the people making them have VERY CHEAP access to parts you might not expect, so take a look.
I miss the old Heathkit sets. Though I don't remember if they went down to resistor level on what you put together.
Well, the current one I've got, for a clock, does.
Wow, I didn't know you're color blind. I wonder how it affects your everyday life. Thinking back you did a great job with the repro cartridge stickers, the colors were spot on even on the hand-made stickers!
Being that I seem to only have issues with Brown and Purple, I can see everything else. I can even see those two colors but it has to be very pure with a lot of light. So I have a mild form of colorblindness. But so does 10% of the male population. Many people don't even realize they have it.
Well hey, I'm blind in my right eye, so yeah.
Reminds me of when certain games do account for colourblind players and such. Do you have to adjust them yourself when you play retro or modern games?
Modern games usually have these settings so you don't mistake your enemies with your teammates in real time matches, don't think that would be super necessary in older games.
Mine is about the same. The primary (only?) effect it has on my life is that when I go to the ophthalmologist, I fail the Ishihara plates test.
Little tip - use a small piece of masking tape to hold the resistors in while soldering. Works great :)
adisharr Another option is the weak glue that factories use when putting components on the back of a board.
@Undefined Lastname True but desoldering that can be a real pain.
@Undefined I know, I meant that if you bend the pins out it becomes hard to desolder.
@Undefined Lastname Thanks for the advises but I know how to solder or desolder I just meant that if you bend the legs of the components to the side, it's harder to desolder them other than if legs are straight because even if there is just a bit of solder left, the component won't just fall out. It's just something I often do experience. But anyway.
I've used a lump of blutak to hold components whilst soldering; heat sunk tweezers help with heat conduction.
Coming from a guy that has been working on electronics since 1979.
Masking tape.
A small bit of masking tape on the component holds it in the board for easy soldering.
For example the resistors. Put them all in, lay masking tape over them, flip and solder. No burnt fingers, no leads going off at weird angles and all components are tight against the board.
Masking tape peels off without leaving residue and is not a super strong adhesive, perfect for this application.
I like your soldering skills, especially keeping that soldering tip clean and shiny which I still couldn't achieved.
I have the feeling that there will be many people complaining about your soldering technique. But it is not too bad in my opinion.
I used to do the same with the solder wire, move the board under it. Then, I bought a small pair of helping hands. And I tend to do it as Clive does: Hold the board, component and solder in one hand altogether...
Nice project. I just ripped apart 3 old ISDN telephones tossed away by someone containing character displays with tons of datasheets for it.
I am sure I could do a lot with it but I just have no real need for such a de ice at the end. To me, it is a bit more fun to see you doing all the work.
Yeah, it's fine. For the sockets though, I'd do one corner, then the other corner diagonally opposite, sort of just to help position it. A big plus on using leaded solder as well. The fumes are just flux/rosin boiling, not actual molten lead coming up to your nostrils. Although, I do find lead-free solder flows better for joining larger gauge (say, 14AWG) wires together, or to copper connectors, like XT60. Everyone has opinion on everything though heh.
I also can’t say that his soldering was really bad, but I would for sure recommend using thinner soldering tip and heat the pad before putting solder on it :)
BigClive's soldering skills are massively impossible for me, i just tend to solder it horridly in mid air and then reseat the component properly.
There was one bit at 6:25 that I was cringing at, but otherwise it was all right. I chalk that up to him having to work around the tripod.
Watching the assembly is super satisfiieying
6:49 Note that you can also find pin 1 easily by looking at the corners of the housing, pin 1 is located at the pointy corner. The other corners are around.
One of the things I like to do with components that take a lot of stress of plugging and unplugging stuff is put a small drop of hot-melt glue under them. This is a tremendous help in keeping from peeling up traces on the board.
The music in your videos takes me back to a time where life was so simple. love it
This reminds me a bunch of the Replica 1 that was produced in the late 2000's. It tried to be nearly one-to-one to the original apple 1, including expansion interfaces to plug in a casette interface card(if you have one). I haven't had a chance to work much with mine, but a project in the back of my mind has been to create a new interface card that adds in a video chip, and a rudimentary card that will allow you to play a single octave of notes on a piezo.
It may actually be possible to connect the ACI (Apple cassette interface) to the pe6502, because like you said it has the full bus expansion port. If you (or the creator) just created an adapter from the pe’s expansion port to the Apple 1’s, and then connected the ACI, you could load programs from cassette.
Despite the finished PE6502 hobby computer being a lame computer, your video production quality for the construction is excellent.
Awesome video, agreed it is a puzzle for nerds. That nothing is more gratifying that seeing what you make run for the first time.
I had an Acorn Atom, it was my first venture into the nitty gritty of hardware and software, if anyone else remembers, it came with 1kbyte of memory for basic and 1kbyte for the display map, but what I really enjoyed about the Atom was the assembly language, remember that first basic prog for a bouncing ball?, I did that in assembly, I was blown away by the difference in speed, I even built a 16kbyte addon board for it using 6116 2kbyte static ram chips I pulled from old arcade machines, the 6502 to this day is still one of my favorite cpu's.
'It's like a jigsaw puzzle for nerds'
You're implying jigsaws aren't already nerdy?
Kapin #1801 favorite line in the vid
I don't think of them as nerdy mainly because jigsaw puzzles aren't very challenging. I think he meant to convey something repetitive and mindless. requiring little skill. IDK though.
i associate jigsaw puzzles more with old people and children than I do nerds.
About the lack of memory mapped video: Just make escape sequences ( in strings) and write tetris for the serial terminal of your choice.. :-)
"I like my chips with D.I.P."
LOL! Love your shirt!
Aaron Hart, nothing I see comes with DIP chips any more, too bad. They’re tasty
you can buy it on his website
Dave, I love your channel. I grew up with the Vic 20 and C64. I don't know why it took me so long to find/get around to watching this particular video. But man, for all of us that have been trained in the military as Electronics Technicians (specifically for me, in the US Navy Nuclear field), you are causing me to cringe everytime you just bend the leads on these components to make them fit on the board! Yeah, yeah, I get it, you aren't repairing a mission critical piece of equipment, but there is such a thing known as stress relief that requires you to bend at the radius of the through holes to allow for thermal expansion and contraction... Holy cow man...I know...OCD installed into my psyche by the US Navy. Lol.
But I love your channel! So much nostalgia! Good stuff...
Nice soldering iron by the way. I have a Haako also, but an older version. All black and comes with a key card to prevent changing the temp (meant for assembly lines)...
I have a tip for soldering things: tape them down. You don't need 3 hands, you need some painter's tape to tape the components to the board.
Some components are also coated in resin, so you'd have to cut the access before soldering which makes tape a godsend.
Actually the CPU is not made by Western Digital, that logo belongs to Western Design Center , they made the 16bit version of this cpu 65816 too
Also, they made almost alo of the support chips for them
A lego set for adults
A Lego set for -adults-
Computer enthusiasts
Yes this is so cool
Yes that looks cool and kindof reminds me of a lego sets adults still build with legos!
Arduino is more like lego for adults. Arduino is far more versatile than the kit in the video.
Yeah but the son has to watch the dad make it
The proper method for assembly is to fit the lowest first and then go up in heights. If you use a foam pad to hold the parts in place. the pressure will hold the lower components and you can press against the desk too. On the LED, you didn't mention that there is a small flat on one side for orientation.
Out of all of those chips, the MAX232 is the one you want socketed more than any. It is the one which has sacrificial driver transistors that will die when absorbing a spike from an external serial device, instead of conducting it into the board/CPU/wherever.
This is an incredibly well-done primer for soldering components on a PCB. So far, I’ve only done a few antenna connectors and a couple wires. I’ve been wanting to get into a bigger project (this still seems a bit too advanced for me, although your skill level made it look real easy!).
Would be cool to see more stuff like this with lower cost , just with a cassette port using standard audio cables so any modern tape recorder could be used
What do you mean you can't read resistor col-"I'm color blind"-carry on then.
CAN ANYONE ACTUALLY THOUGH (I'm color blind too)
If you can't read 'em, test 'em. Any multimeter can rad resistance!
@@brentboswell1294 mine reads in deg
@@alicewyan if you know the color code, yes
@@Grunchy005 That's pretty sickening. You're a trump voter I presume?
The 8-Bit Guy is colorblind, Techmoan has anosmia... Does technology of the 80's harm your senses..?
Look at Dave Jones from EEVlog,he can tell the year of fabrication from any electronic device just by smelling it.
TiE It's more like it was the only hobbies that didn't require a fully functional body.
Basically, yeah. Have you any idea just how much X-ray radiation comes out of an old 15khz monitor? Or the sheer amount of RF produced by an 8 or 16 bit computer, particularly with the lid off? To say nothing of all the copious static shocks, and that continual high-pitched whine...
:D
May i ask why?
It's physically impossible to listen to Dave Jones without one of those bat voice frequency shifters to bring Jones' whining, screeching squeak into the human hearing range ...
I started soldering 8-bit computers together recently and have made a couple so far. For beginners I would recommend the Z80-MBC2, it's a small PCB that only requires four IC's to get it running so the cost of parts is cheap. It's basically an Arduino-controlled Z80 and it can run a bunch of stuff from SD including Basic and CP/M. Something like the PE6502 in comparison is quite challenging due to the amount of soldering required. Still a fine system but not ideal for beginners.
This is the first time I've ever seen a board assembled. Thanks so much!
When using flux, try to avoid anything that's organic and/or water soluble as it's conductive and can land you into the realm of troubleshooting.
I'm told that organic water soluble fluxes tend to be really active as well. So active, that if you leave them alone for too long they will dissolve copper traces. They're best suited for when you have pads that are really crusty with oxides, and even then you need to clean them off as soon as you've made the joint.
I always measure resistors anyway. If you've got a voltage divider or something it's good to know the values are close.
Thank you 8-color guy
8-bit palette guy
256-color guy, to be correct
128 bit guy
Colonel Graff The 6502 guy
Colonel Graff Thats. Not. A. Fun. Pun.
Hello from Farmers Branch! The best use for extra header pins is to use in other projects to hold 3v coin cells. It fits perfectly. Nice video as usual.
That's how it all started. Learning to pay attention, and in the end being confident in matters of well thought out and coordinated action.
19:38
Dave: OK Telix, do your stuff!
486 laptop: **shits itself**
Dave: ._. umm... okay, we're using HyperTerminal for Windows instead...
Near 1985 I was having 386 with windows 3.1 ver. less than 1 Gb hardisk.
@@sriyantra1939 Windows 3.1 was relesaed in 1992.
@@easybee0 and wikipedia says the 386 was released in 1986
@@sriyantra1939 condidering that in 1991 I had a DOS 4 386 PC with 40 MB of hard disk, I don't find it strange in the least. It also costed a crapton.
Best intro/music ever
Did anyone else besides me dream of one day ordering a HEATHKIT computer from a catalog? I never did order one, but I sure dreamed about it. That was before we got our first Apple II.
What a fun channel! Thank you for all of your work....my comment is that whenever I watch a kit assembly video that speaks to beginners, there's little or no commentary about the importance and usefulness of flux when soldering....and just because a lot of solder on the market has a flux core is not a reason to leave it out. I've learned the hard way to have a tube of flux available just in case it would help improve the results I'm getting! (by improving heat conduction)
Three years late, I know, but here is one small tidbit of general advice that came to mind:
If you need to solder two 16-pin chips, but you only have one socket, it's a good idea to check which of the two has (more) external connections, what they are (input or output), and how likely it is that you might have to replace a chip.
Looking at the PE6502 assembly instructions, I can see U10 (MAX232) and U5 (74HCT138N) are both 16-pin chips. The 74138 address decoder chip has technically also an external connection (to the expansion port), but all pins connected to it are output pins, so they should be a bit more robust. The MAX232 however goes via a serial cable to some other computer, and will be connected/disconnected a lot, the cable pins might also get static electricity (people touching them), etc. So I would probably have placed the MAX232 (RS232 level converter) into the socket.
It probably does not really matter, as the MAX232 is a fairly robust chip, and even if it needs replacing, 16 pins are luckily not that many.
Just wanted to state a reason why you might want to choose one chip over another for the 'privilege' to be placed a socket.
And I saw on the Putnam site that they promised a Parallax upgrade to control the cursor position, but I don't know if they ever released it. :-)
As a 35 year electronics designer and adult instructor, my sad observation is that electronics is dying as a hobby and I wish that wasn’t so. When I was a kid, Henry Radio and Radio Shack, both gone, were places a hobbyist could go.. and Popular Electronics was a favorite read of mine. I only started designing because I discovered there was always one DAMNED COMPONENT I couldn’t find when I eagerly built my popular electronics projects. My level of experience has (fortunately) gotten more VLSI these days than those good old “discrete” days.
Many projecs on my You Tube Channel :)
The laugh at 23:56 is such a nerdy laugh haha
3:10 R2D2 joke HAHA :)
that's no pirate laugh for sure
Just so you know, I could've clicked like just to be the 100th...
those soldering work is so satisfying to look... >
Yeah I gotta say those solder joints are pretty much perfectly uniform. He's definitely pretty good at it.
in 1988 I had a computer class and they had some TRS-80 color computer kits for us to assemble. We could keep them when we were done. Not to brag (I actually amazed myself) but not only did I finish my kit before anyone else in class, my computer was the only one that would work. The instructor asked to keep mine for the classroom since it was the only functioning one of the group.
I'm probably the umpteenth person to mention this but soldering components that want to slip out when you overturn the board is made much easier by pressing a blob of blue-tack beside or even bridging the component body to temporarily stick the component in place while you solder the leads on the reverse of the PCB. Great video, cheers.
Soldering is like sewing or knitting, but for cool people.
I tend to liken it Airfix kits but with a soldering iron.
Soldering isn't cool. Because it's hot. Cringy joke humor.
Leave.
Apply your iron, before the solder. Your technique is causing horrid joints. eg at 6:32. Just before 10:00 you do apply the solder correctly(apart from the first IC pin), and the result looks much better.
Yes also he should not touch the solder to the soldering iron tip.
I'm glad others noticed this, in my head I kept hearing 'heat the work, not the solder...'
If you saw one of his other videos, you would know that he taught himself how to solder, so thats just the technique he taught himself to use.
"This is the only diode in this entire project"
A FEW MINUTES LATER
"This is the power LED" ( light emitting DIODE)
Also the ICs have transistors inside which as well can be counted in on the "diode" count as well.
When I construct electronics I keep one of those peak electronics LCR meters on the bench and quickly measure the component values before soldering them in. Easy if you are tired to solder in a 100k resistor instead of a 10k. Also great for checking if you have a duff electrolytic, or something is way out of tolerance. I figure it’s worth the extra time to try to get things right 1st time rather than troubleshoot later.
14:15 That 6502 is stamped with 2011 as the year of manufacture, so it was not brand new, but rather, six years old when you were holding it in your hand. ;)
750 degrees is pretty hot for a PCB. I usually shoot for 650
If only my thermocouple wasn't broke I'd measure the temp I use. Not sure how hot my butane soldering iron is but it probably exceeds 650 easily. It's also got a hot air tip (essentially a piece of catalytic honeycomb stuff in a tube) which heats things much more gently. I need to get a new K type probe and measure it. Besides heating up faster only other real benefits to a gas iron are that it's cordless and dosen't have the risk of leakage current killing sensitive ICs.
Yeah, in my part of the world, where we use Celsius, 260C (which is 500F) is more than enough to melt lead based multi-core solder. 750F is about 400 Celsius, which is going to quickly damage sensitive parts unless you are very quick. Normally you'd only want to go up to 600 - 650F when soldering things like the DC plug where large terminals are going to soak up the heat. But 750F is really just too hot for sensitive electronics work!
Greg Clare
Around 700F is common on assembly lines, and is usually OK if you don't dwell on the solder pads for too long.
But, it is maybe a tiny bit hot for more "hobbyist" use.
btw - one of the common bad habits with soldering is adding the fresh solder to the iron first, then hoping it will flow to the pad / pin.
You're supposed to keep the tip lightly tinned, but then heat up both the pad and pin, feed in enough fresh solder, let it flow fully, then remove the heat.
Adding the solder to the iron first means that a lot of the flux will "boil off" before it has chance to fully do it's job of cleaning the solder joint.
That can create dry solder joints, even if they look OK externally, and appear strong.
ElectronAsh also, after the pad is filled, drag up on the pin for a pretty look!
Yeah, I often do that on through-hole stuff, as it tends to make a better solder "fillet".
www.rctech.net/forum/attachments/radio-electronics/533187d1261511217-how-solder-correctly-not-so-brief-lesson-solder.jpg
This is still one of the best quick soldering vids I've found...
th-cam.com/video/IpkkfK937mU/w-d-xo.html
$130 is too much for this computer. Woud be OK for x86 computer because you can actually use it for other stuff, but Apple 1 becomes useless afte you play with it enough.
Exactly! You can buy quad core mini computers running Windows 10 for less than that cost.
I’m almost sure it’s because they have that large custom PCB, plus the rarity of some of those components.
These DIP packages are not produced in mass quantities nowadays, therefore they're really expensive. Some of them are not being manufactured anymore so they're really expensive.
130$ to buy brand new DIY nostalgia is not bad at all. Also, I must note that this is not the cheapest PCB you can get, in fact purple soldermask is quite expensive. Now they offer another PCB option that is lower in price.
@@hussssshie The 6502 CPU and the support chips that were made for it are still being produced today. the 65c02 the CMOS version can be purchased from mouser for $9.99. Apparently alot of industrial, scientific and medical equipment used the 6502 processor. That stuff is difficult to re-certify and has a long service life. The TTL and CMOS logic IC's are still available today for the same reason all in DIP packaging too :).
@@Shawn_White It's amazing to me that the 6502 is about $10 for "just" a CPU but an AVR microcontroller with built-in RAM, flash storage, EEPROM, clock etc. is $2-3.
Ok this is the perfect example of what people are thinking when you say "I built my own computer"
Yea you fit the pieces into the same shape slot like a kid with a square peg.
But man it seems like magic to everyone else.
And now (2022 AD), some years later, the 8 Bit Guy & his team did invented a computer which runs his beloved Commodore BASIC: Commander X16! 🙋♂🙏👍
Any PC or Mac can run that stuff using an emulator. Heck, I am sure somebody made a website that can run it in your browser. ;-)
I also suffer the green/brown, blue/purple blindness. So frustrating sometimes. I envy you still do this.