Love the article. In my teens, I loved the RadioShack COCO in the 80s & its Assembly Language EditASM+. A manual to the 6809 assembly language can be found here: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Manuals/Prog.... That was my first intro to assembly.
In High School, I used the TRS80s for programming in BASIC as well as for electronics stuff. We had access to Apple IIs but used them mostly for VisiCalc, spreadsheet and word processing. Having a RadioShack next to the high school, probably influenced my choice to keep using those brands of machines as opposed to Atari/Commodore. In my original move to Florida, before I returned, the COCO was shipped via land transport, when it arrived, I was informed that the shipment was damaged including the COCO. Life is not kind :(
I was lucky enough to be able to mail £5 notes to Llamasoft in Mount Pleasant, and receive freshly reproduced tapes from Jeff Minter, or more likely his mum or dad.. The sheer joy of getting home from school and there being a Jiffy bag with Yaks latest game was like nothing else.. From GridRunner, LaserZone, HellGate, MetaGalactic Llama Battle At The Edge Of Time..
BASIC for 8-bit computers was an interesting language. It was limited in many aspects, but taught a whole generation about how computers actually worked. Apart from non-native data types (strings and floats), it was quite close to the machine - GOTO and GOSUB map very neatly to (in 6502) JMP and JSR.
I wish these kinds of computers would come back. Maybe with a language like Lua or Ruby instead of BASIC in ROM. The closest is the 400 and 500 series of Pis but those just aren't the same :(
The fun part about old computers we won't get back with microcontrollers is actually building the computer part. You started with a CPU and from there you added memory such as DRAM, SRAM and ROM like EPROM/EEPROM and Flash, UART controllers, IO controllers, and interrupt/DMA controllers. Then you mapped those into memory or IO space and routed interrupts. The you started writing code and watch your computer come to life. Did that in uni and it was a life changing experience.
You could preserve some of that with an FPGA ecosystem starting with perhaps a simple RV32 core that you drag and drop UART, SPI, I2C, memory controllers, counters/timers, DMA, MMU, Ethernet, USB and other peripherals.
But part of me would want the old school preserved where we still make a series of hobby/trainer components in DIP (or PLCC/QFP) form and let people build a working computer from core components. Similar to how there was a line of support ICs for the Intel 808x and Motorola 68xx CPU's. Maybe some newer chips like a DIP USB host/device and a serial controller for SPI/SDIO/I2C. Perhaps a simple RV32 core in DIP 40 with a muxed 16 bit bus and 20+ bits of address.
for what it's worth, there are kit computers you can buy still. It's a niche market, but there are a good few z80 kits out there and ben eater sells a kit for building a custom 8bit CPU on a breadboard and a 6502 based kit
I think they still make the Z80? In my uni it was an 8088 in minimal mode. At work we have a few JK Nd:YAG lasers running on 6809's still making money.
While writing this post I actually got an itch to buy a Commodore 64 Ultimate, even though I never owned a Commodore 64 before. (I believe I used one once at friend's house.) Nostalgia by contagion.
Cool kids had C64s. I had every other boring, flawed model. Tandy MC-10. TI-99, ZX80 (not even 81!) and some other CoCo with chiclet keys. Now I know the 6809 is actually pretty interesting but back then without video or graphic chips there wasn't much you could do as a 12 year old.
Weirdly the most fun I had was with the BASIC programmable SHARP PC-xxxx line. I still have my PC-1350 somewhere.
That 6809 bewitched my middle school self. Having already learnt Z80 assembly language, the 6809 just looked so much more elegant. It had index registers that were actually useful! It had position independent code! It could do multiplication in one instruction! So when faced with choosing a CoCo or a C64 .. of course I chose the machine with the MUL instruction. Naturally, within mere months, that horrid 32x16 black on green display forced the harsh realization that a computer is more than just the CPU, that the support chips could actually be far more interesting. Who cares about a multiply instruction, when you could have sprites and 3 voice sound?
My worst hardware choice (later) was to save with a monochrome VGA screen to afford a 24pin Fujitsu dot matrix vs the 9pin Epson. It forged the person I am today.
Love the article. In my teens, I loved the RadioShack COCO in the 80s & its Assembly Language EditASM+. A manual to the 6809 assembly language can be found here: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Manuals/Prog.... That was my first intro to assembly.
In High School, I used the TRS80s for programming in BASIC as well as for electronics stuff. We had access to Apple IIs but used them mostly for VisiCalc, spreadsheet and word processing. Having a RadioShack next to the high school, probably influenced my choice to keep using those brands of machines as opposed to Atari/Commodore. In my original move to Florida, before I returned, the COCO was shipped via land transport, when it arrived, I was informed that the shipment was damaged including the COCO. Life is not kind :(
This whole series is amazing.
Pretty cool article.
Nowadays often when you see articles about computer history of this era, the articles tend to be focused on Apple and IBM.
So it’s neat this article focuses on the other computers of this era. TI, Atari, Commodore, etc.
It's interesting how things differed so much across different countries.
In the UK there was good split between Atari and Amiga, and before that the Spectrum and the C64.
Lots of rivalries and interesting characters though, for sure.
I only had one game for my VIC-20, the pack-in game, called BASIC. I never beat it, but I got a few levels in!
I was lucky enough to be able to mail £5 notes to Llamasoft in Mount Pleasant, and receive freshly reproduced tapes from Jeff Minter, or more likely his mum or dad.. The sheer joy of getting home from school and there being a Jiffy bag with Yaks latest game was like nothing else.. From GridRunner, LaserZone, HellGate, MetaGalactic Llama Battle At The Edge Of Time..
You sure on the name? I'm having a hard time finding a reference, Wiki amongst a few other searches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VIC-20_games
BASIC was a programming language, it was a joke.
A joke that got a lot of us high paying jobs later on.
Thanks for validating my initial assumptions.. Was hoping for something more than hello, world :/
BASIC for 8-bit computers was an interesting language. It was limited in many aspects, but taught a whole generation about how computers actually worked. Apart from non-native data types (strings and floats), it was quite close to the machine - GOTO and GOSUB map very neatly to (in 6502) JMP and JSR.
Some mistakenly documented it as an application, and not a game:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIC-20#Applications (First sentence.)
I'm younger than the vic-20 by a few decades but this comment made me feel old, jeez
I wish these kinds of computers would come back. Maybe with a language like Lua or Ruby instead of BASIC in ROM. The closest is the 400 and 500 series of Pis but those just aren't the same :(
The fun part about old computers we won't get back with microcontrollers is actually building the computer part. You started with a CPU and from there you added memory such as DRAM, SRAM and ROM like EPROM/EEPROM and Flash, UART controllers, IO controllers, and interrupt/DMA controllers. Then you mapped those into memory or IO space and routed interrupts. The you started writing code and watch your computer come to life. Did that in uni and it was a life changing experience.
You could preserve some of that with an FPGA ecosystem starting with perhaps a simple RV32 core that you drag and drop UART, SPI, I2C, memory controllers, counters/timers, DMA, MMU, Ethernet, USB and other peripherals.
But part of me would want the old school preserved where we still make a series of hobby/trainer components in DIP (or PLCC/QFP) form and let people build a working computer from core components. Similar to how there was a line of support ICs for the Intel 808x and Motorola 68xx CPU's. Maybe some newer chips like a DIP USB host/device and a serial controller for SPI/SDIO/I2C. Perhaps a simple RV32 core in DIP 40 with a muxed 16 bit bus and 20+ bits of address.
for what it's worth, there are kit computers you can buy still. It's a niche market, but there are a good few z80 kits out there and ben eater sells a kit for building a custom 8bit CPU on a breadboard and a 6502 based kit
I think they still make the Z80? In my uni it was an 8088 in minimal mode. At work we have a few JK Nd:YAG lasers running on 6809's still making money.
They made the original Z80 until a year ago or so. They still sell Z80 based chips that are compatible, but aren't just a Z80
While writing this post I actually got an itch to buy a Commodore 64 Ultimate, even though I never owned a Commodore 64 before. (I believe I used one once at friend's house.) Nostalgia by contagion.
The Ultimate sounds great. I have the lesser C64 Maxi. Would be nice if it could emulate the Plus 4 or the C16.
Do you think you could squeeze them into an 8K or 16K ROM? Better would be Forth or Logo.
My first computer was a VIC-20, in 1982 or so. It had so little RAM, that I needed to program it with a Machine Language monitor cartridge.
Cool kids had C64s. I had every other boring, flawed model. Tandy MC-10. TI-99, ZX80 (not even 81!) and some other CoCo with chiclet keys. Now I know the 6809 is actually pretty interesting but back then without video or graphic chips there wasn't much you could do as a 12 year old.
Weirdly the most fun I had was with the BASIC programmable SHARP PC-xxxx line. I still have my PC-1350 somewhere.
That 6809 bewitched my middle school self. Having already learnt Z80 assembly language, the 6809 just looked so much more elegant. It had index registers that were actually useful! It had position independent code! It could do multiplication in one instruction! So when faced with choosing a CoCo or a C64 .. of course I chose the machine with the MUL instruction. Naturally, within mere months, that horrid 32x16 black on green display forced the harsh realization that a computer is more than just the CPU, that the support chips could actually be far more interesting. Who cares about a multiply instruction, when you could have sprites and 3 voice sound?
My worst hardware choice (later) was to save with a monochrome VGA screen to afford a 24pin Fujitsu dot matrix vs the 9pin Epson. It forged the person I am today.
[dead]