you should pin the comment so people don't have to look for it. By the way this video is made very well, awesome job! Especially the "intermissions", they really add a poetic and personal element to it, and I've never seen it done on youtube before (not in this field atleast). About your project, I own many microcontrollers and electronics components, so I might try doing something similar at some point. Thank you for the inspiration!
LOVE this. Blogging it tomorrow. An old-school at home tinkerer project designed around a plant-based extended metaphor; what more could we ask for? This is exactly why Raspberry Pi was created in the first place - to get people back into building their own computers at home.
Thank you! The original Raspberry Pi brought excitement back into computing for me - I even made magic mirrors for Christmas one year :) Discovering the RP2040 this past year has done it again - I appreciate what Rasberry Pi has given to computing.
"it has something like a 2 Hz refresh rate and the shell is known to lock up fairly frequently" Yup, sounds like a typical retro computer to me! Well done! :) This was a great walkthrough of a neat project, and a great example of how anyone can really jump in and start teaching themselves something new, if they really want to and can just come up with some interesting idea to pursue. I really like it.
@@imperiosheriffmy C16 booted in less of a second and only locked up when I made a mistake in assembly. Games ran at 50 fps ( memory was the harder limit, not compute).
What wonderful production quality and interesting content for having so few subscribers! Please if you have the time, continue to post things like this :)
I appreciate hearing that! Making the video has been almost as fun as making the computer - recording throughout was a lot, but its been a great way to reflect on the work. I'll definitely keep posting!
Thanks for taking me on your journey. As a lifelong Seattleite and microcontroller hobbyist, I feel we have a lot in common but your ability to move a large project from start to finish sets you appart. I hope you continue to share with us.
Thank you so much! I felt like this one was an important one for me to finish - I had to let myself take breaks - the real challenge will be moving it from here to fully finished. I'll continue posting on it - and my newest project too :)
As a Electronics Engineer I have to say, that you did a great job. But for this project it would be less time consuming and much more reliable to produce a PCB. PCB's are dirt cheap nowadays and high quality. (of course you need to learn how to use a PCB Layout Software first)
Thank you for that! Producing a PCB is my next step on this - I'm hoping to get it rolling early in the new year. There is a lot more work needed to build out the operating system software, but I think HW footprint is ready for a prototype. I'll post an update.
just because PCB's are dirt cheap doesn't mean one should be wasteful, much better to prototype without to know exactly what is needed, then make a pcb when that's more set in stone
I respect the passion, desire to learn, courage to try (and fail), and even more resolute courage to re-try (and eventually succeed). The irony is that the computing horsepower is there in your project to exceed what what 100+ retro computers could do if you go back to the wire wrapped back plane and CPUs made from through hole discreet logic ICs with daughter boards for the various I/O. But I'm not minimizing what you did. You learned a great deal!
I appreciate that, this was all about trying something new. On your second point - I agree! There are so many optimizations to be had here - but that would make it feel too much like my day job to be fun :) In all seriousness though, recent updates have made it super snappy and my next steps on this are to consider how I can make use of the extra horsepower - its a fun experiment.
An excellent and worthwhile journey. Almost the exact opposite of my past 45 years ! Electronics, Hardware, machine code, assembler then onward and upward to today. A lot of the details lost, but each generation of knowledge created a platform for the next. As an example, the current flurry of interest in AI, is just a stepping stone to SI, which takes the human/commercial imperatives out of the development and evolution of intelligent systems. SI is no doubt a threat to humanity, but it can do it ‘better’
Thank you! It's the best thing about humans - we build on what came before us. One of the worst things about humans is that we tend to create things we don't fully understand and can't control.
@@wrongdog_reckons You are right, if we understood things from the beginning, maybe we will create other different things with different concepts, we are not forced to always be tied to the same concepts of the previous generation.
I’m moved by your insights - your focus on personal creative growth rather than “growing the economy” or whatever we’re pushed to believe in. I wish you all the best on your journey - within yourself, with your creativity and thanks for letting me see a fraction of its resulting beauty…
Absolutely brilliant work! I started out in R&D at a company in Germany, spent my first few years in "IT" at the very low levels (which is why I chuckled a little too hard at the ALU talk). It was fun, but invariably frustrating with very little reward at the end of each day. I found consulting, system administration and later managing IT teams to be far more rewarding, though some days just as frustrating. During COVID I built my own "Arduino" on breadboards just to go back to basics one last time. And it was quite fun and challenging. Now the thing is just a clock on my home office desk. The video is so well presented too. I loved seeing you delve into each thought process along the way. The "why's" and "how's" clearly presented.
Thank you so much! Your COVID project sounds cool - I think getting back to basics brings helps build context. There is so much to learn. Appreciate the comments on the video - making it was a challenge and has been one of my favorite parts of the project.
Well done. I started when you had to modify the BIOS for your homebuilt CP/M machine, to match your configuration. This was usually loaded by a hand entered stub loader on a binary control panel ( like an Altair ), because a PROM/UV-Eprom burner was non-trivial. using hardware required understanding the software, and but using the siftware required that you know your hardware. That was ages away from appliance conputers. Lolz Memories of 1977.
Thank you for sharing - I am fascinated with computing history. Especially, when they are so ingrained and ubiquitous in our lives and we just expect them to work, but we need to keep in mind how very recently they were actually introduced. It hasn't been that long.
The more I learn about how computers work under the hood the more everything else makes sense. When I first started coding a year ago nothing made sense at all. But after seeing how everything was built up one lay at a time over decades it makes more sense now.
From my experience, its layered - like an onion. You peel away one layer and there's another layer there. Generally, we become highly specialized in one specific layer and don't need to move too far away from there to 'get things done.' I barely got to the hardware layer here, just enough to see that there are layers and layers below still :) Cheers and best of luck!
Wow, the hardware I could do but you totally leave me for dead with the software. In the 80"s I built myself a computer using a 6800 but it had no OS just a pile of switches and leds, I wanted to get it to run something like BASIC but never was able to get it working. However I did learn assembler and how to use a logic analyser so I was very happy too.
Assembler take a lot of brain power :) What happened with the computer from the 80's? Is it still floating around somewhere? Thanks for watching - cheers!
The transient ground problem brought to mind a bit of folklore about the Acorn BBC B, that there's a resistor that no one was quite sure why it was needed, but it fulfilled the function that an engineer's finger on a certain place on the prototype board had. Take the finger off, and the machine would flake out and just stop. If you're not a retro computer fan (and not British) the BBC isn't a machine one would come across - it was the computer that was used in most UK schools in the early 80s, on the back of a computer literacy initiative between the BBC and UK Gov of the time. The Raspberry Pi is something of the spiritual successor to the BBC, especially in terms of the exposed I/O. The first ARM chips were part designed, and tested on 8 bit BBC kit, and BBC BASIC is still one of the best dialects of the language out there - it was designed to teach a lot of the best practices of programming (after Wirth, et al), and is still in development today, albeit slowly. RISC OS has it baked in, and there are Windows, CP/M and Android versions.
Amazing - thank you for sharing that! TH-cam algorithms have resulted in me watching a LOT of UK based retro-tech creators and I've seen a couple of blurbs about the Acorn BBC micro in watching about Acorn history. Thanks for the insights - after your description, I did a search and Tom Scott has a video on them that I'm watching next: th-cam.com/video/g80rnhK-cKo/w-d-xo.html
This was one of the most emotional, personal, and captivating buildlogs/devlogs I have ever seen. Whatever it is, I absolutely loved it and could not pull myself away!
As a software engineer I can relate to that feeling to not understanding the low level components very well, but I love your modular architecture, you design is reminiscent of micro services deployed in a Kubernetes cluster, with coupled but separate components interacting with each other over some common message bus. Great video!
You are absolutely right - I noted that exact thing yesterday in a comment: in the end, I just took a pattern that is very common to me (built-in to my brain at this point) and applied it to a new (to me) problem space. I think it makes some sense that these same patterns would apply at the high level and the low level. You just get a lot less syntactic-sugar to play with at the low level :) Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Is there anything better than finding a youtube channel with really aestheticly pleasing and solid content, and you're in the first thousand subs?! Oh man. Chipping in as one of the EEs in this comment section - it's inspiring to see the approach of a non hardware savvy engineer. Didn't recognise it as microservice based until you commented that, but I like it. I agree with the other guy that said it would be interesting to get more insight in the sw side as well. Lots of kudos (kudoses?)! Anyway. ❤
I really appreciate this video. I love how the computer turned out in the end. I'm working on my own operating system (after hearing your definition I'm more comfortable calling it that), that manages I/O from an epaper display with a few buttons. It's been really fun building rendering functions from scratch, then being able to use those to build other UI drawing components and text. Im glad I had this video recommended to me
Thanks! I generally like the looks of technical and mechanical components - I like my desk computer to look sleek and do consider aesthetics when I get new equipment. This is the first time though that I've seen tech components as aesthetics-first - I started with a notion of what I wanted it to look like and then filled in the design and features to match that.
Thanks - making the video was an ever-present part of the project and one of the most enjoyable parts tbh, so I appreciate you for letting me know you enjoyed it.
What a wonderful way to inspire discovery using resources many contemporary hobbyists are already familiar with but have not thought to put together or were too scared to tackle. The modular design lends itself well to experimenting or trying different controllers. As a non-developer, software development has until recently been very intimidating. I've plateaued with Micro-Python blinking lights projects. Your narrative style here has inspired me to invest more time in the programming side of things. I'm drawn towards emulating some of the classic computers since buying the kits is expensive. I already have a shelf of SBCs being under utilized. Hehe.
Thanks! I've had a ton of fun with it still - and it gets people's attention when they see it. You're right - emulation is a great way to get the same feel without the same price :) Cheers!
As a fellow hardware/software hacker, I was uplifted by your quality production of a favorite subject matter. I went down the rabbit hole of the Ben Eater 8-bit computer but that's because I'm more of a hardware guy. Your story has an arc and was a testimony to quality video production well done. Someone should write a song to go along with it. I plan to follow your progress with Ficus. Good on ya, mate.
Thank you so much - I really appreciate that. I think I need a few more skills before I try Ben Eater's computer, but I plan to enjoy every step of the way :) Cheers!
Ben's computer is so intensive to put together because of all the interconnect. Superior breadboards are a must! But there is another version called the Bravo that takes the same concepts as Ben's design but applies it to actual circuit boards and more advanced parts. I built that one also and it could be expanded just by adding PWBs since the bussing is contained in the connector stack. Cool idea. @@wrongdog_reckons
That is actually one of the nicest things to say because I end spending a great deal of time fretting over the names of things - I end up refactoring a lot just for that. To me, its important to get the right concept.
I also like to think about the life my projects will have after I am gone. Someone finding it, being intrigued by this relic from a past technological time, and just maybe giving it some love and a place in their home. Realy cool project btw kudos
I know! So much of my work is just digital code that's never seen a physical form, so sometimes I imagine future 'digital archeologists' trying to piece together code fragments and figure out what they were for. This project gives a physical dimension - I love it!
Back in 2008 my now fiance and a good friend where developing a flash cart for the Master System and i wrote a barebone OS for the menu system in pure Z80. Some OS functions for getting input and output, getting a directory from the SD card, loading into RAM and execute the code just loaded and so on. Maybe some day i'll dig that up again and finish what i wanted to get from that project, a SMS based home computer. Nice project, i hope it will inspire others to experiment more.
Perhaps I can make a simpler project than this awesome computer, and can be well documented and nice to watch like this. Congratulation, you're doing great!
That is a great thing to do. Your motivation and approach are inspirational - keep going and even though it is not a cutting-edge piece of technology from, let's say, conventional point of view, it's definitely interesting, entertaining and I would say educational. The main thing it brings positive mood and the sense of accimplishment when what you have designed starts to work exactly as you planned. Good luck with it and I'd really like to see where it will go.
You should put a 12v to 5v DC to DC stepdown module. It will help with managing all the power requirements of the system more easily than having all the currents being delivered by one of the boards. Apart from that, you built a very nice system. Can't wait to see how things evolve
It's a neat design idea to lay the functions out into a network. Some people get funny about new microcontrollers being used for retro projects but really there are no rules and it all comes down to preference. Just like any other form of art. The design I'm working on is a Z80 with ATmega328 for serial interface and then a Raspberry Pi Pico as a terminal for screen and keyboard.
Thank you - I appreciate your words. You're right, it is an art and we can make it up as we go along :) Want to learn more about your project - posting it anywhere?
What an absolutely great achievement. I would be so pleased to have done this myself. As someone who struggles with starting and finishing projects, I greatly admire your dedication and perseverance. Thank you for sharing your journey as it’s inspirational and motivates me to try harder. Also, good luck with your health, sorry to hear about your many travels to hospitals. Warm regards from a currently rather cold and wet Netherlands 😊.
I have always had a short attention span - jumping from one half-finished project to the next. One of the reasons I decided to make the video was to make me finish the project - I felt like it was important for me to follow through at that point. It's been a very helpful process for me. Best of luck to you - and stay dry and warm!
This is a really fun project! At my day job I design internal test equipment for consumer product R&D, and for the last year or two I've been working on a modular data acquisition and test automation platform that uses raspberry pi picos on interchangeable cards sending data over a common message bus. There's some parallels with your project and a lot of differences, but I really like seeing how you approached a similar problem from your perspective as a higher level software engineer. I feel like the two entry points to programming are at the very high and the very low level, and coming from the really low level end (my first Real Programming language was Assembly, I hated it. I mostly just do C/C++ in Arduino now) I'm finding that step upwards into higher level stuff both challenging and rewarding. While I know code videos don't tend to do so well on youtube, I'd be interested in some more in-depth videos on the software architecture!
Thanks! I had originally imagined this video would be mostly about the code parts, but it just took a different direction all on its own :) Once I finish out a few pieces, I'll do a deep dive on the code for sure. To your main point, I kind of took what I know from software and applied it here, since it really is a mirror of a micro-service architecture where each service runs on its own little chip. I find it interesting that similar patterns apply at all the levels - but I guess it makes sense that they would. Cheers!
This is how I learned to code two decades ago. It frustrated me that I had no idea how a computer worked (1's and 0's became what I see on the screen), and started studying microprocessor design. Then I learned how to code to emulate processors. After that, I got frustrated in not knowing how the internet worked. So, I learned how to use Google, and just started searching. Eventually, I had to learn to code even more in order to create TCP hosts and clients, and thus learned Python.
This is something I have always wanted to do but never took the time. I am glad you were able to do it. It is quite inspiring, and I am sure it was alot of work. If you ever wrote a book with a BoM, I would buy it and make it for sure. No better way to learn about what a computer is and what sort of creative freedom they potentially encompass.
Thanks! The time spent diving deep has been a great diversion - and having the creative freedom of how to connect the pieces together makes it fun. Time well spent.
A great project, and well made video! It is a rabbit-hole indeed and an adventure to see how deep it goes. I studied Computer Science as well, focusing on the hardware/low-level side of things and really enjoy these kinds of projects. Keep it up!
Cool! My plan for 2024 is to develop some things using hardware rather than always working on software projects, hence I am discovering great videos like yours. I like the idea of getting close to the bare metal. I've ordered various ESP32 modules to play with.
There's still plenty of coding to do, but I have been having way more fun programming hardware I can actually use in my daily life, rather than trying to find a programming project that just does something on a screen for the most part. And then the idea of reusable code really comes into play. Write a driver for a component and make it a class and keep it configurable and you can just reuse that code. I find myself writing C++ while thinking about how I can use the software in other projects. It's a ton of fun.
@@psyience3213 Great. I got my first dev board working with wifi connecting to my phone and a pc today. Very nice since I want to try to extract data from my smart phone to display on a small screen such as for when I am riding my bike. But now it's winter maybe do some kind of home monitoring like you.
I see this as a reciprocal function of a successful software designer over time. There comes a time when you give yourself enough grief over something the uncomfortablenes of changing breaks into the actual change itself..i have had similar (pipe dreams) I wanted to say Thanks for your effort and commitment to your goals as well as doing it while sharing your experience with other people.
this is awesome! im not sure how "authentically" retro this is, but it definitely captures the same spirit as early homebrew computer projects. those pi zeros (and similar / "knock-off" boards) are so cheap, i would love to write a special OS that deals with parallel processing across multiple boards.
Thank you! You are right, it is not authentically retro - it's retro-styled and inspired. The idea was exactly that - modern MCUs are cheap and implement most of the basics themselves.
That's an extremely nice thing to say. My intention is to keep making videos about my projects - I really enjoy the whole process and appreciate the positive feedback. Thanks so much!
Programming is physical. But it's not obvious. In 1977 I saw an electronics engineer friend demonstrate his original home-brew computer using a 6800 processor. Despite my own years of electronics and programming courses, things were still foggy until I applied that knowledge on my own system. After an amazing 'aha' moment, it all clicked. Later, as a game development professor, I tried recreating those "aha" experiences for my students. Those who pushed beyond those barriers left other students in the dust, reversed engineered products, and became excellent problem solvers. Thanks for sharing your own journey. Now can you reduce production costs while making it scalable? 😎
I really like how you said that - 'Programming is physical. But its not obvious.' - I think I've missed a lot of 'obvious' things because I didn't take the time to reflect and introspect. Its worth doing. On the students that you saw excel, where would you put curiosity as a factor?
Really cool video, this popped up for me as I’ve been looking more into messing around with hardware. Looks like I have a new project lol. Keep up the good work!
My approach to the hardware architecture side of things entails a bare bones 6502 system with a couple of UARTs communicating with Picos and ESP32s that run all of the peripherals. The idea is to be able to test and debug all of the subsystems in isolation rather than having to build the whole system out at once.
@@wrongdog_reckons could I suggest that you make a video comparing those processors and also add the Motorola 6809 to the list? I've got a feeling that you would find it as interesting to make as we would to watch. 😮
wow that's a wonderful project ! i did something similar a year ago, i made the emulator of ben eaters 8 bit computer on a pico and made the device handheld so i could play with it during boring lecture classes. have hosted it on hackaday as "8 bit handheld computer".
THAT is cool AF. I especially appreciate the online simulator, playing with that now. Thanks for the pointer - I subscribed to your hackaday project and yt channel. Cheers!
Another good homebrew series like Ben Eater's is the one by James Sharman where he builds a pipelined CPU and some peripherals like a graphics card, sound card, and various I/O.
I've been working with the Pi Picos for some time (SDK, not Arduino), and you probably could have built this entire system with a single (or maybe 2) picos if you utilised their lower-level capabilities. With custom code, both TFT graphics and USB can run on a single pico core using DMA and other trickery at >10fps and a reliable 1ms USB polling rate, then there is still an entire core free for some juicy processing (perhaps for networking?). SPI would be a better alternative for intermodule comms, since the pico can clock at 120 MHz (~100Mbps). Arduino libraries will be painfully slow for many specialised tasks, and horrible to develop more advanced systems in. All that aside, this is a learning project and seeing that this is your first crack at hardware, this is genuinely impressive for a first try!
Oh yeah - there are so many optimizations to be had here. The beauty is, I still have room for all those optimizations and will have tons of leftover processing power. Think of all the things we'll be able to do then! Thanks for watching!
You'd be very hard pressed to rush 120MHz signals through this type of wiring. But then again, the RP2040 has no problem pushing wider buses, as demonstrated e.g. when driving DVI.
@@0LoneTech Some care is required with the ground wires for 120 MHz, but I have had no problems when twisting the wires for these speeds. Some series resistors can also solve ringing issues (even the 10th harmonic of 120 MHz has a wavelength of ~25cm).
I don't know if you know of his channel, but Ben Eater has a couple wonderful series on building your own computer from the ground up. One on building an 8-bit computer from scratch, the other one based on a 6502 microprocessor. He takes you through them both and teaches as he builds. In the end you have learned a lot about computer hardware on it's most basic level. How things are done and why. It's really relaxing to watch too. Edit: I wrote this comment before I got to the halfway point.
Yes! Ben Eater was one of my major inspirations here and only discovered him during this process. That dude just straight up builds computers from scratch and almost like he's doing it off the top of his head. I had no idea that such a thing was possible. Thanks so much for watching!
@@wrongdog_reckons You should build a 6502 system if you really want to understand hardware at the nuts-and-bolts level. Microcontroller boards are too "black box." One of the hard requirements for my system is that I should be able to write the system routines in assembly and burn them onto an EEPROM. To be honest, I find hardware registers, data buses, and things like chip-enable and output-enable pins easier to understand than modern UEFI bootloaders and what-not.
I had a fantasy when I was younger about building a "mainframe" out of a load of the Z80 and 6502 computers that were around then... it looks like this is my fantasy come to life but with 2020s tech instead of 1980s. :)
Amazing quality video! That's all that can be said. How can a random person with only 218 subs (as of writing this) can put out such quality content and be interesting at the same time? Another channel I would recommend is James Sharman, he's been building his own cpu from scratch and has come a very long way. It's over 110 episodes at this point and all quality content.
Thank you - those are kind words! I am surprised and humbled by the response myself, TBH. I was hoping for a hundred views and a couple of comments. Thanks for the pointer to James Sharman - I am checking out their channel now :)
![Build an 8-bit retro computer powered by a Z80 ! [Zeal 8-bit]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n_eEDAQWMdY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Build an 8-bit retro computer powered by a Z80 ! [Zeal 8-bit]](/img/tr.png)
Code repo: github.com/shane-mason/FicusOS/tree/main
you should pin the comment so people don't have to look for it. By the way this video is made very well, awesome job! Especially the "intermissions", they really add a poetic and personal element to it, and I've never seen it done on youtube before (not in this field atleast). About your project, I own many microcontrollers and electronics components, so I might try doing something similar at some point. Thank you for the inspiration!
@@solarctp Good callout! I didn't know that pinning was a thing :)
LOVE this. Blogging it tomorrow. An old-school at home tinkerer project designed around a plant-based extended metaphor; what more could we ask for? This is exactly why Raspberry Pi was created in the first place - to get people back into building their own computers at home.
Thank you! The original Raspberry Pi brought excitement back into computing for me - I even made magic mirrors for Christmas one year :) Discovering the RP2040 this past year has done it again - I appreciate what Rasberry Pi has given to computing.
"I have a degree in computer science.... but what I really wanted to be was a film director" vibes here haha.. Nicely done!
You are 100% not wrong! Even on this project, its hard to say which I enjoyed more: the build or the video. Thanks for watching!
"it has something like a 2 Hz refresh rate and the shell is known to lock up fairly frequently" Yup, sounds like a typical retro computer to me! Well done! :)
This was a great walkthrough of a neat project, and a great example of how anyone can really jump in and start teaching themselves something new, if they really want to and can just come up with some interesting idea to pursue. I really like it.
Thanks! It was so fun to make both the computer and the video. I learned a lot - mostly about how much I have left to learn :)
Exactly, until the first Microsoft Windows it was like this or even worse
@@imperiosheriffmy C16 booted in less of a second and only locked up when I made a mistake in assembly. Games ran at 50 fps ( memory was the harder limit, not compute).
Absolutely loved it brother. I am a ambitious 17 year old child who loves retro technology and this felt like a bliss to me. Keep it up.
That's really cool - I like the idea of passing the retro tech concepts to new generations. Good luck on your journey - cheers!
This video is a work of art. I love the diagrams and the interspersed shots of the seasons changing. Jaw droppingly beautiful.
Thank you very much! Those are some very kind words - I appreciate them and I appreciate you.
Interest, Inspiring, Clarity, Learning Curve, Modular, Creativity, Divide and Conquer, RP2040 - So much in one video. Thank You 😊
Thank you so much! You're not wrong - its kind of like a low-key fever dream in a way.
What wonderful production quality and interesting content for having so few subscribers!
Please if you have the time, continue to post things like this :)
I appreciate hearing that! Making the video has been almost as fun as making the computer - recording throughout was a lot, but its been a great way to reflect on the work. I'll definitely keep posting!
Thanks for taking me on your journey. As a lifelong Seattleite and microcontroller hobbyist, I feel we have a lot in common but your ability to move a large project from start to finish sets you appart. I hope you continue to share with us.
Thank you so much! I felt like this one was an important one for me to finish - I had to let myself take breaks - the real challenge will be moving it from here to fully finished. I'll continue posting on it - and my newest project too :)
As a Electronics Engineer I have to say, that you did a great job. But for this project it would be less time consuming and much more reliable to produce a PCB. PCB's are dirt cheap nowadays and high quality. (of course you need to learn how to use a PCB Layout Software first)
Thank you for that! Producing a PCB is my next step on this - I'm hoping to get it rolling early in the new year. There is a lot more work needed to build out the operating system software, but I think HW footprint is ready for a prototype. I'll post an update.
I vote for KiCAD ver.7. Its free and really really good!!!
@@wrongdog_reckons Since you are a Linux user, let me suggest KiCAD. Open source, and not hard to learn once you get the terminology down.
@@wrongdog_reckonsI think you did a great job not using a PCB first, as an artist.
just because PCB's are dirt cheap doesn't mean one should be wasteful, much better to prototype without to know exactly what is needed, then make a pcb when that's more set in stone
I respect the passion, desire to learn, courage to try (and fail), and even more resolute courage to re-try (and eventually succeed). The irony is that the computing horsepower is there in your project to exceed what what 100+ retro computers could do if you go back to the wire wrapped back plane and CPUs made from through hole discreet logic ICs with daughter boards for the various I/O. But I'm not minimizing what you did. You learned a great deal!
I appreciate that, this was all about trying something new. On your second point - I agree! There are so many optimizations to be had here - but that would make it feel too much like my day job to be fun :) In all seriousness though, recent updates have made it super snappy and my next steps on this are to consider how I can make use of the extra horsepower - its a fun experiment.
An excellent and worthwhile journey.
Almost the exact opposite of my past 45 years !
Electronics, Hardware, machine code, assembler then onward and upward to today.
A lot of the details lost, but each generation of knowledge created a platform for the next.
As an example, the current flurry of interest in AI, is just a stepping stone to SI, which takes the human/commercial imperatives out of the development and evolution of intelligent systems.
SI is no doubt a threat to humanity, but it can do it ‘better’
Thank you!
It's the best thing about humans - we build on what came before us. One of the worst things about humans is that we tend to create things we don't fully understand and can't control.
@@wrongdog_reckons You are right, if we understood things from the beginning, maybe we will create other different things with different concepts, we are not forced to always be tied to the same concepts of the previous generation.
Wow, what a awesome project.
Thank you! Its brought me a lot of satisfaction.
I’m moved by your insights - your focus on personal creative growth rather than “growing the economy” or whatever we’re pushed to believe in.
I wish you all the best on your journey - within yourself, with your creativity and thanks for letting me see a fraction of its resulting beauty…
Your words are very kind and I appreciate you taking the time to share them - its encouraging. Be safe and take care!
Absolutely brilliant work! I started out in R&D at a company in Germany, spent my first few years in "IT" at the very low levels (which is why I chuckled a little too hard at the ALU talk). It was fun, but invariably frustrating with very little reward at the end of each day. I found consulting, system administration and later managing IT teams to be far more rewarding, though some days just as frustrating.
During COVID I built my own "Arduino" on breadboards just to go back to basics one last time. And it was quite fun and challenging. Now the thing is just a clock on my home office desk.
The video is so well presented too. I loved seeing you delve into each thought process along the way. The "why's" and "how's" clearly presented.
Thank you so much! Your COVID project sounds cool - I think getting back to basics brings helps build context. There is so much to learn. Appreciate the comments on the video - making it was a challenge and has been one of my favorite parts of the project.
Well done.
I started when you had to modify the BIOS for your homebuilt CP/M machine, to match your configuration.
This was usually loaded by a hand entered stub loader on a binary control panel ( like an Altair ), because a PROM/UV-Eprom burner was non-trivial.
using hardware required understanding the software, and but using the siftware required that you know your hardware.
That was ages away from appliance conputers.
Lolz Memories of 1977.
Thank you for sharing - I am fascinated with computing history. Especially, when they are so ingrained and ubiquitous in our lives and we just expect them to work, but we need to keep in mind how very recently they were actually introduced. It hasn't been that long.
Wow! This is really a nice project. Love it 🥰 And especially the sentence „Is it a good computer? No! But it is my computer“ means so much!
Thank you! I'll make it a better computer over time, but I'm super happy to have gotten it working in the first place 😊
The more I learn about how computers work under the hood the more everything else makes sense. When I first started coding a year ago nothing made sense at all. But after seeing how everything was built up one lay at a time over decades it makes more sense now.
From my experience, its layered - like an onion. You peel away one layer and there's another layer there. Generally, we become highly specialized in one specific layer and don't need to move too far away from there to 'get things done.' I barely got to the hardware layer here, just enough to see that there are layers and layers below still :) Cheers and best of luck!
Wow, the hardware I could do but you totally leave me for dead with the software. In the 80"s I built myself a computer using a 6800 but it had no OS just a pile of switches and leds, I wanted to get it to run something like BASIC but never was able to get it working. However I did learn assembler and how to use a logic analyser so I was very happy too.
Assembler take a lot of brain power :) What happened with the computer from the 80's? Is it still floating around somewhere? Thanks for watching - cheers!
The transient ground problem brought to mind a bit of folklore about the Acorn BBC B, that there's a resistor that no one was quite sure why it was needed, but it fulfilled the function that an engineer's finger on a certain place on the prototype board had. Take the finger off, and the machine would flake out and just stop. If you're not a retro computer fan (and not British) the BBC isn't a machine one would come across - it was the computer that was used in most UK schools in the early 80s, on the back of a computer literacy initiative between the BBC and UK Gov of the time. The Raspberry Pi is something of the spiritual successor to the BBC, especially in terms of the exposed I/O. The first ARM chips were part designed, and tested on 8 bit BBC kit, and BBC BASIC is still one of the best dialects of the language out there - it was designed to teach a lot of the best practices of programming (after Wirth, et al), and is still in development today, albeit slowly. RISC OS has it baked in, and there are Windows, CP/M and Android versions.
Amazing - thank you for sharing that! TH-cam algorithms have resulted in me watching a LOT of UK based retro-tech creators and I've seen a couple of blurbs about the Acorn BBC micro in watching about Acorn history. Thanks for the insights - after your description, I did a search and Tom Scott has a video on them that I'm watching next: th-cam.com/video/g80rnhK-cKo/w-d-xo.html
This was one of the most emotional, personal, and captivating buildlogs/devlogs I have ever seen. Whatever it is, I absolutely loved it and could not pull myself away!
These are such kind and encouraging and humbling words - I really appreciate hearing them. Thanks for watching!
As a software engineer I can relate to that feeling to not understanding the low level components very well, but I love your modular architecture, you design is reminiscent of micro services deployed in a Kubernetes cluster, with coupled but separate components interacting with each other over some common message bus. Great video!
You are absolutely right - I noted that exact thing yesterday in a comment: in the end, I just took a pattern that is very common to me (built-in to my brain at this point) and applied it to a new (to me) problem space. I think it makes some sense that these same patterns would apply at the high level and the low level. You just get a lot less syntactic-sugar to play with at the low level :) Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Absolutely brilliant ! this is what these electronics are about.. not making game emulators.. but learning..
Agree - they open a whole new field of possibilities - far beyond another NES emu :)
Is there anything better than finding a youtube channel with really aestheticly pleasing and solid content, and you're in the first thousand subs?! Oh man. Chipping in as one of the EEs in this comment section - it's inspiring to see the approach of a non hardware savvy engineer. Didn't recognise it as microservice based until you commented that, but I like it. I agree with the other guy that said it would be interesting to get more insight in the sw side as well.
Lots of kudos (kudoses?)! Anyway. ❤
Thank you! I've really enjoyed making this and will do a follow up piece on the software as it continues developing.
I love this. And it's fun that you basically summarized almost whole year in 17 minutes :D
This was a genuine treat to watch. Thank you for putting so much time and dedication into the video. I would like to build one now.
Thanks - and go for it! I've had a great time with it.
I really appreciate this video. I love how the computer turned out in the end.
I'm working on my own operating system (after hearing your definition I'm more comfortable calling it that), that manages I/O from an epaper display with a few buttons.
It's been really fun building rendering functions from scratch, then being able to use those to build other UI drawing components and text.
Im glad I had this video recommended to me
Couldn't agree more - its fun to get into the basics :) Thanks so much for your kind words, and share your project out so we can see. Good luck!
Please keep posting your videos are so cinematic and can watch for hours dude. really nice project
Thank you so much! I absolutely will keep posting, have two in the works now :) Cheers!
Everything about this video is beautiful. The technical topics, storytelling, and videography, bravo!
Those are incredibly kind words and made my day - thanks!
Very interesting video, enjoyed it. Loved that you see it as an expression of art when it's technology based. I'm a SAP analyst btw!
Thanks! I generally like the looks of technical and mechanical components - I like my desk computer to look sleek and do consider aesthetics when I get new equipment. This is the first time though that I've seen tech components as aesthetics-first - I started with a notion of what I wanted it to look like and then filled in the design and features to match that.
Loved the video, loved the excellent shots of the city, looking forward to your next video
Thanks - making the video was an ever-present part of the project and one of the most enjoyable parts tbh, so I appreciate you for letting me know you enjoyed it.
What a wonderful way to inspire discovery using resources many contemporary hobbyists are already familiar with but have not thought to put together or were too scared to tackle. The modular design lends itself well to experimenting or trying different controllers.
As a non-developer, software development has until recently been very intimidating. I've plateaued with Micro-Python blinking lights projects. Your narrative style here has inspired me to invest more time in the programming side of things.
I'm drawn towards emulating some of the classic computers since buying the kits is expensive. I already have a shelf of SBCs being under utilized. Hehe.
Thanks! I've had a ton of fun with it still - and it gets people's attention when they see it. You're right - emulation is a great way to get the same feel without the same price :) Cheers!
As a fellow hardware/software hacker, I was uplifted by your quality production of a favorite subject matter. I went down the rabbit hole of the Ben Eater 8-bit computer but that's because I'm more of a hardware guy. Your story has an arc and was a testimony to quality video production well done. Someone should write a song to go along with it. I plan to follow your progress with Ficus. Good on ya, mate.
Thank you so much - I really appreciate that. I think I need a few more skills before I try Ben Eater's computer, but I plan to enjoy every step of the way :) Cheers!
Ben's computer is so intensive to put together because of all the interconnect. Superior breadboards are a must! But there is another version called the Bravo that takes the same concepts as Ben's design but applies it to actual circuit boards and more advanced parts. I built that one also and it could be expanded just by adding PWBs since the bussing is contained in the connector stack. Cool idea. @@wrongdog_reckons
Impressive work. I love watching stuff like this. I can't even imagine how cool it feels to get something like this to work. Thank you for the video!
I'm not gonna lie, it feels pretty good when it works :) Thanks so much for your kind words!
I’m proud to be among your first 400 subscribers. I think this will be a great channel.
Thanks! I really hope so too - thanks for subscribing!
One of the best videos i have ever seen :)
What an incredibly kind thing to say! Very glad you enjoyed it and thank you for letting me know!
This was/is a super cool project, and the way you produced and directed the video is outstanding. Kudos to you Sir!
Thank you kindly! It was a blast to make, so glad you enjoyed :)
Considering the rest of the software world, I think you're better than average at naming things.
That is actually one of the nicest things to say because I end spending a great deal of time fretting over the names of things - I end up refactoring a lot just for that. To me, its important to get the right concept.
Continue the good work, my good sir! now I wanna build my own version asap
Thanks! I'll keep posting updates! Would be super excited to see what you build!
I also like to think about the life my projects will have after I am gone. Someone finding it, being intrigued by this relic from a past technological time, and just maybe giving it some love and a place in their home.
Realy cool project btw kudos
I know! So much of my work is just digital code that's never seen a physical form, so sometimes I imagine future 'digital archeologists' trying to piece together code fragments and figure out what they were for. This project gives a physical dimension - I love it!
What a wonderful project and impeccable production. Kudos!
Thank you - I really appreciate that.
Just wow! Keep up the good work!
That is so kind - I am so pleased that people seem to like this :)
This is sick. Nice work!
Thank you so much for that! It's been a labor of love!
This guy is basically what I want to be. I am very jealous.
Edit: Also, this is really cool.
Thank you so much, those are extremely kind words! Best advice: go out and learn/build something that makes you happy.
Back in 2008 my now fiance and a good friend where developing a flash cart for the Master System and i wrote a barebone OS for the menu system in pure Z80. Some OS functions for getting input and output, getting a directory from the SD card, loading into RAM and execute the code just loaded and so on.
Maybe some day i'll dig that up again and finish what i wanted to get from that project, a SMS based home computer.
Nice project, i hope it will inspire others to experiment more.
Thanks! I want to hear more about that SMS based computer please :)
That's not just amazing but an impressive project as well.😮
Thank you! I appreciate hearing that.
Perhaps I can make a simpler project than this awesome computer, and can be well documented and nice to watch like this. Congratulation, you're doing great!
Please do! Its time well spent. Thanks!
I didn't believe how few subs you have, this feels like big channel content. Great Job!
Thank you! Making the video has been one of the best parts of this project.
loved the idea and watching the video, great work!
Thanks so much! I've had a great time making it and so I appreciate the feedback!
That is a great thing to do. Your motivation and approach are inspirational - keep going and even though it is not a cutting-edge piece of technology from, let's say, conventional point of view, it's definitely interesting, entertaining and I would say educational. The main thing it brings positive mood and the sense of accimplishment when what you have designed starts to work exactly as you planned. Good luck with it and I'd really like to see where it will go.
That is so gratifying to hear that the vibe I was trying to set in the video landed - I'll keep posting updates.
The project looks great. Wish you good health
Thank you so much - that is very kind :)
You should put a 12v to 5v DC to DC stepdown module.
It will help with managing all the power requirements of the system more easily than having all the currents being delivered by one of the boards.
Apart from that, you built a very nice system.
Can't wait to see how things evolve
This is a solid piece of advise. Having the boards power it does NOT get me consistent results. Thanks so much - I'll post updates!
"it's a good computer? No but it's an expression of art"
Well said - I appreciate that statement. Thank you.
Wow! Great job and well done! Beautifully filmed and narrated as well. Thank you for putting the time & effort to create this video. I loved it! :-)
That is very kind - its exactly the kind of response I hoped the video would get and so I really appreciate hearing it :)
What an incredible, incredible piece of work and video!
Thank you so much! I have enjoyed making it, so I am super pleased hearing that you enjoyed it!
It's a neat design idea to lay the functions out into a network. Some people get funny about new microcontrollers being used for retro projects but really there are no rules and it all comes down to preference. Just like any other form of art. The design I'm working on is a Z80 with ATmega328 for serial interface and then a Raspberry Pi Pico as a terminal for screen and keyboard.
Thank you - I appreciate your words. You're right, it is an art and we can make it up as we go along :) Want to learn more about your project - posting it anywhere?
What an absolutely great achievement. I would be so pleased to have done this myself. As someone who struggles with starting and finishing projects, I greatly admire your dedication and perseverance. Thank you for sharing your journey as it’s inspirational and motivates me to try harder. Also, good luck with your health, sorry to hear about your many travels to hospitals. Warm regards from a currently rather cold and wet Netherlands 😊.
I have always had a short attention span - jumping from one half-finished project to the next. One of the reasons I decided to make the video was to make me finish the project - I felt like it was important for me to follow through at that point. It's been a very helpful process for me. Best of luck to you - and stay dry and warm!
I really like this, thanks for posting a nice video explaining it.
Wishing you all the best in life and future projects.
Thank you so much for watching and letting me know - I've had a great time with this project so I'm glad people are enjoying it - cheers!
This is a really fun project! At my day job I design internal test equipment for consumer product R&D, and for the last year or two I've been working on a modular data acquisition and test automation platform that uses raspberry pi picos on interchangeable cards sending data over a common message bus. There's some parallels with your project and a lot of differences, but I really like seeing how you approached a similar problem from your perspective as a higher level software engineer. I feel like the two entry points to programming are at the very high and the very low level, and coming from the really low level end (my first Real Programming language was Assembly, I hated it. I mostly just do C/C++ in Arduino now) I'm finding that step upwards into higher level stuff both challenging and rewarding. While I know code videos don't tend to do so well on youtube, I'd be interested in some more in-depth videos on the software architecture!
Thanks! I had originally imagined this video would be mostly about the code parts, but it just took a different direction all on its own :) Once I finish out a few pieces, I'll do a deep dive on the code for sure. To your main point, I kind of took what I know from software and applied it here, since it really is a mirror of a micro-service architecture where each service runs on its own little chip. I find it interesting that similar patterns apply at all the levels - but I guess it makes sense that they would. Cheers!
It came out beautiful! It is equal parts art as it is a technical feat.
Thank you! I appreciate that you get what I was going for here. Cheers!
This is how I learned to code two decades ago. It frustrated me that I had no idea how a computer worked (1's and 0's became what I see on the screen), and started studying microprocessor design. Then I learned how to code to emulate processors. After that, I got frustrated in not knowing how the internet worked. So, I learned how to use Google, and just started searching. Eventually, I had to learn to code even more in order to create TCP hosts and clients, and thus learned Python.
Its all an incremental journey. Thanks for watching - cheers!
Brilliant video. I'm from Tacoma and it's always cool to see people from the area.
I know! I get super excited when I see a place/building I know or even hear a name from nearby :) Thanks for watching - cheers!
What an amazing project bro! It looks great too.
Thank you - its a fun project to work on. Cheers!
wow what a journey. congrats and very cool vid.
Thanks so much! I've had an amazing time on this project - so glad that you enjoyed in :)
This is something I have always wanted to do but never took the time. I am glad you were able to do it. It is quite inspiring, and I am sure it was alot of work. If you ever wrote a book with a BoM, I would buy it and make it for sure. No better way to learn about what a computer is and what sort of creative freedom they potentially encompass.
Thanks! The time spent diving deep has been a great diversion - and having the creative freedom of how to connect the pieces together makes it fun. Time well spent.
A great project, and well made video! It is a rabbit-hole indeed and an adventure to see how deep it goes. I studied Computer Science as well, focusing on the hardware/low-level side of things and really enjoy these kinds of projects. Keep it up!
Thank you! If there is one thing I can find, its a rabbit hole. Often a whole hierarchy of them :) Thanks for watching - cheers!
This randomly popped up in my recommended. This channel seems like it'll be huge. Subscriber #382 checking in.
Thanks - I'll keep making videos - I am hoping that people like them :)
I've got emotional watching this.
If I am 100% honest, I got emotional making it. Thanks!
What a wonderful project and video, a great watch, thank you
Thank you - so glad that you enjoyed it :)
Cool! My plan for 2024 is to develop some things using hardware rather than always working on software projects, hence I am discovering great videos like yours. I like the idea of getting close to the bare metal. I've ordered various ESP32 modules to play with.
There's still plenty of coding to do, but I have been having way more fun programming hardware I can actually use in my daily life, rather than trying to find a programming project that just does something on a screen for the most part. And then the idea of reusable code really comes into play. Write a driver for a component and make it a class and keep it configurable and you can just reuse that code. I find myself writing C++ while thinking about how I can use the software in other projects. It's a ton of fun.
@@psyience3213 Great. I got my first dev board working with wifi connecting to my phone and a pc today. Very nice since I want to try to extract data from my smart phone to display on a small screen such as for when I am riding my bike. But now it's winter maybe do some kind of home monitoring like you.
I see this as a reciprocal function of a successful software designer over time. There comes a time when you give yourself enough grief over something the uncomfortablenes of changing breaks into the actual change itself..i have had similar (pipe dreams) I wanted to say Thanks for your effort and commitment to your goals as well as doing it while sharing your experience with other people.
Amazing project, so inspirational!
Thank you - that's so gratifying to hear!
Great job! It looks really cool too!
Thank you! Cheers!
This is a very interesting approach. Subscribed and want to see more of this project!
Thank you! I will be posting more on this - working on improvements to the graphics IO now.
Beautiful piece of hardware. I really love it 🥰
I really appreciate you saying that - thanks. Cheers!
this is awesome! im not sure how "authentically" retro this is, but it definitely captures the same spirit as early homebrew computer projects. those pi zeros (and similar / "knock-off" boards) are so cheap, i would love to write a special OS that deals with parallel processing across multiple boards.
Thank you! You are right, it is not authentically retro - it's retro-styled and inspired. The idea was exactly that - modern MCUs are cheap and implement most of the basics themselves.
Very cool, I'd love to have one.
Thanks! It was so fun to make too :)
how tf do you not have more subscribers, you deserve 100k, i dont want to se you quit! you dereve every like and sub you get
That's an extremely nice thing to say. My intention is to keep making videos about my projects - I really enjoy the whole process and appreciate the positive feedback. Thanks so much!
That's beautiful man
Thank you so much :)
beautiful work, thank you
Thanks - it's been a good experience for me. Cheers!
Programming is physical. But it's not obvious. In 1977 I saw an electronics engineer friend demonstrate his original home-brew computer using a 6800 processor. Despite my own years of electronics and programming courses, things were still foggy until I applied that knowledge on my own system. After an amazing 'aha' moment, it all clicked. Later, as a game development professor, I tried recreating those "aha" experiences for my students. Those who pushed beyond those barriers left other students in the dust, reversed engineered products, and became excellent problem solvers. Thanks for sharing your own journey. Now can you reduce production costs while making it scalable? 😎
I really like how you said that - 'Programming is physical. But its not obvious.' - I think I've missed a lot of 'obvious' things because I didn't take the time to reflect and introspect. Its worth doing.
On the students that you saw excel, where would you put curiosity as a factor?
Really cool video, this popped up for me as I’ve been looking more into messing around with hardware. Looks like I have a new project lol. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! Putting this thing together has been a blast!
My approach to the hardware architecture side of things entails a bare bones 6502 system with a couple of UARTs communicating with Picos and ESP32s that run all of the peripherals. The idea is to be able to test and debug all of the subsystems in isolation rather than having to build the whole system out at once.
That's a really good approach. I think I probably need to check out the 6502 or Z80s for an upcoming project :) Cheers!
@@wrongdog_reckons could I suggest that you make a video comparing those processors and also add the Motorola 6809 to the list? I've got a feeling that you would find it as interesting to make as we would to watch. 😮
Keep going, man! Great project
Thank you - I will keep updating :)
wow that's a wonderful project ! i did something similar a year ago, i made the emulator of ben eaters 8 bit computer on a pico and made the device handheld so i could play with it during boring lecture classes. have hosted it on hackaday as "8 bit handheld computer".
THAT is cool AF. I especially appreciate the online simulator, playing with that now. Thanks for the pointer - I subscribed to your hackaday project and yt channel. Cheers!
@@wrongdog_reckons thanks means a lot 🙂
Cool, now you inspired me to make my own version
That's amazing! Please share what you build!
Cool project. Well done on the story telling too
This looks incredible!
Thank you so much for that!
Very fine work.
Thank you! Cheers!
I'm down for this ride.
Very cool journey. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! I appreciate you letting me know - cheers!
Another good homebrew series like Ben Eater's is the one by James Sharman where he builds a pipelined CPU and some peripherals like a graphics card, sound card, and various I/O.
Yes! I recently subscribed to them and am working my way through the series. Thanks for the tip!
I've been working with the Pi Picos for some time (SDK, not Arduino), and you probably could have built this entire system with a single (or maybe 2) picos if you utilised their lower-level capabilities. With custom code, both TFT graphics and USB can run on a single pico core using DMA and other trickery at >10fps and a reliable 1ms USB polling rate, then there is still an entire core free for some juicy processing (perhaps for networking?). SPI would be a better alternative for intermodule comms, since the pico can clock at 120 MHz (~100Mbps). Arduino libraries will be painfully slow for many specialised tasks, and horrible to develop more advanced systems in.
All that aside, this is a learning project and seeing that this is your first crack at hardware, this is genuinely impressive for a first try!
Oh yeah - there are so many optimizations to be had here. The beauty is, I still have room for all those optimizations and will have tons of leftover processing power. Think of all the things we'll be able to do then! Thanks for watching!
You'd be very hard pressed to rush 120MHz signals through this type of wiring. But then again, the RP2040 has no problem pushing wider buses, as demonstrated e.g. when driving DVI.
@@0LoneTech Some care is required with the ground wires for 120 MHz, but I have had no problems when twisting the wires for these speeds. Some series resistors can also solve ringing issues (even the 10th harmonic of 120 MHz has a wavelength of ~25cm).
really dig your work
Thank you - I really appreciate hearing that!
I don't know if you know of his channel, but Ben Eater has a couple wonderful series on building your own computer from the ground up. One on building an 8-bit computer from scratch, the other one based on a 6502 microprocessor.
He takes you through them both and teaches as he builds. In the end you have learned a lot about computer hardware on it's most basic level. How things are done and why. It's really relaxing to watch too.
Edit: I wrote this comment before I got to the halfway point.
Yes! Ben Eater was one of my major inspirations here and only discovered him during this process. That dude just straight up builds computers from scratch and almost like he's doing it off the top of his head. I had no idea that such a thing was possible. Thanks so much for watching!
@@wrongdog_reckons You should build a 6502 system if you really want to understand hardware at the nuts-and-bolts level. Microcontroller boards are too "black box." One of the hard requirements for my system is that I should be able to write the system routines in assembly and burn them onto an EEPROM. To be honest, I find hardware registers, data buses, and things like chip-enable and output-enable pins easier to understand than modern UEFI bootloaders and what-not.
@@RealDevastatia Agree on the 6502 suggestion - thanks for watching!
Beautiful
Thanks so much!
Wow. Just wow.
I had a fantasy when I was younger about building a "mainframe" out of a load of the Z80 and 6502 computers that were around then... it looks like this is my fantasy come to life but with 2020s tech instead of 1980s. :)
The recent tech made it a lot easier, I can assure you :) Cheers!
This was great! Thank you. Makes me want to try projects like this.
Thank you! You definitely should - I think everybody has great ideas and its mostly about the follow-through. Good luck!
Really good video! Love your videography and computer science skills!
Thank you so much! I had a good time making it - glad you enjoyed it!
Amazing quality video! That's all that can be said. How can a random person with only 218 subs (as of writing this) can put out such quality content and be interesting at the same time?
Another channel I would recommend is James Sharman, he's been building his own cpu from scratch and has come a very long way. It's over 110 episodes at this point and all quality content.
Thank you - those are kind words! I am surprised and humbled by the response myself, TBH. I was hoping for a hundred views and a couple of comments. Thanks for the pointer to James Sharman - I am checking out their channel now :)