I finally had a few days off over the holiday weekend and was able to follow along with Ben Eater’s 6502 computer series on youtube.
The videos series is well done and the build was pretty straight forward. The schematic for the final computer is below.
I didn’t take too many pictures of the build process. I did start out with a different breadboard layout, but it was getting a bit cramped, so I built out the address and data buses down one side of the breadboard which made things much easier.
I also bought some of the actual busboard brand breadboards this time. My last few breadboard computers were plagued with flaky connections, but so far the busboard breadboards have been working great.
The arduino mega was used as a poor man’s logic analyzer and was really helpful during troubleshooting.
I started out with the 555 clock module from my other breadboard computer.
The final computer is shown below with a 1MHz can oscillator.
The computer is programmed with 6502 assembly. The code for the hello world program is below.
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PORTB = $6000 PORTA = $6001 DDRB = $6002 DDRA = $6003 E = %10000000 RW = %01000000 RS = %00100000 .org $8000 reset: ldx #$ff txs lda #%11111111 ; Set all pins on port B to output sta DDRB lda #%11100000 ; Set top 3 pins on port A to output sta DDRA lda #%00111000 ; Set 8-bit mode; 2-line display; 5x8 font jsr lcd_instruction lda #%00001110 ; Display on; cursor on; blink off jsr lcd_instruction lda #%00000110 ; Increment and shift cursor; don't shift display jsr lcd_instruction lda #$00000001 ; Clear display jsr lcd_instruction ldx #0 print: lda message,x beq loop jsr print_char inx jmp print loop: jmp loop message: .asciiz "Hello, world!" lcd_wait: pha lda #%00000000 ; Port B is input sta DDRB lcdbusy: lda #RW sta PORTA lda #(RW | E) sta PORTA lda PORTB and #%10000000 bne lcdbusy lda #RW sta PORTA lda #%11111111 ; Port B is output sta DDRB pla rts lcd_instruction: jsr lcd_wait sta PORTB lda #0 ; Clear RS/RW/E bits sta PORTA lda #E ; Set E bit to send instruction sta PORTA lda #0 ; Clear RS/RW/E bits sta PORTA rts print_char: jsr lcd_wait sta PORTB lda #RS ; Set RS; Clear RW/E bits sta PORTA lda #(RS | E) ; Set E bit to send instruction sta PORTA lda #RS ; Clear E bits sta PORTA rts .org $fffc .word reset .word $0000 |