We’ve been working on the MOnSter 6502 project for quite some time. We first introduced it last year, and since then we have brought it up to the stage of successfully running programs in assembly, BASIC, and Forth. We have taken this opportunity before Maker Faire to put together an introductory video for the project.
9 thoughts on “MOnSter 6502 Video”
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I’m curious if you’re willing to publish any details for the computer that you developed?
“we have built up a single-board computer (a tiny motherboard) that uses the 6502 as its CPU, such that you can either use a socketed (vintage) 6502 IC, or the MOnSter 6502 through a cable.”
Is this a potential future product for you? Perhaps it would allow more people to develop for your MOnSter 6502 without having one?
The computer uses an ARM-based microcontroller to emulate a standard set of computer peripheral ICs. Eric has put up a separate blog post where he gives a few more details about its capabilities. And yes, it is likely to evolve into a future product for us. It’s getting to be a wonderful little 6502 development environment, and the fact that you can swap out the IC for the MOnSter is icing on the cake. :)
Thanks for the response. I think that there will be some interest in your board if it turns into a product. After Maker Faire will a MOnSter 6502 be at your retail site in Sunnyvale?
Or perhaps here: http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/
The MOnSter is at another level, and we aren’t making any decisions about it yet. We will be exhibiting the MOnSter 6502 at the VCF west.
If you’re asking about whether the MOnSter 6502 will be on display at our shop after Maker Faire, the answer to that is no. We do have a bare first rev PCB here, but we do not normally have an assembled one up and running and on display.
That’s what I meant – thanks for the response.
Would you like a copy of an original MOS 6502 manual?
Have one from when I passed on an Apple 2, (really, basic in ROM), and wound up with an Ohio Scientific Instrument Challenger unit. Basic on cassette tape.
The guy I didn’t buy from, at an Atlantic City home brew computer fair, wore a black suit and was named Jobs. Who knew! OSI went under.
And the 8K Basic for the 12K OSI machine was a Memorex tape with a hand typed label, from Microsoft.
Just kept the chip and the manual all those years later.
Suggestion you may already have thought of:
You should consider building an Infocom z-machine interpreter that would run on the Monster 6502, so you could run Zork on it. That’d be software from the relevant era, but with relatively simple display requirements.
That’s pretty impressive.
I have been throwing around a similar idea for a while, but I never really get anything done. (I was perhaps being even more insane, in that I contemplated trying to create a 65c816… I mean, that’s only 20,000 transistors… No big deal, right? >_<)
Nowadays I'm more into the idea of creating a 2d graphics chip. (something in the vein of an SNES style chip, though that may be too complex.)
I… Don't think I'd go as far as making it entirely out of discrete transistors though. XD
And it may involve a few cheats. (I mean, if you're trying to output to a monitor you have to do it fast enough to meet the timing requirements…)
Still, it's fun to see someone that actually has a working example of a project like this.
I'd love a PCB for this thing if you ever consider selling them. (I'm OK with having to source the components myself, but re-doing the entire PCB design seems…)
Or failing that, the design files needed to have a copy of the PCB produced would do, honestly.
Ah well. XD
Very impressive work, regardless of what you intend to do with it in future…