At uni there was a 'Logic Analyser', only the Senior Lecturer was allowed anywhere near it as it was rumoured to cost as much as a new car - I just bought the modern equivalent for $10. Indeed! I originally used a simple home-made logic probe as my only digital test instrument (aside from my analog...

For those interested in the CreatiVision project, I've just recently added to the MECB GitHub repository, the following: CreatiVision ROM0 + ROM1 images for MECB_1MB_ROM_Expansion containing 16 CreatiVision Cartridges (plus a .PDF describing all 16 selectable CreatiVision Cartridges). 28C256 ROM ima...

I've added a section: Address Decoding Glue Logic (ATF16V8) , to the initial pinned post on this topic To allow easily re-programming of your PLD chip with a simple USB programmer (e.g. TL866), without the need to install WinCupl (to compile the .PLD source), I've now added to the MECB GitHub reposi...

Here I have made a sector dump from a USB stick attached to a ch376. This is pretty impressive! More recently I've been working on about 4 projects concurrently, 2 at the PCB manufacturing stage, and 1 that I'm currently PCB routing. Unfortunately, commitments are also ramping-up for the "end ...

Welcome Paul. It's great to see you here on the forum. I look forward to hearing more about your retro rediscovery journey. I think you'll find a group of fellow enthusiasts here, who all share similar stories of how they got started with microprocessors back in the day. Your comment about MECB desc...

Today has been a bit different, something I've been meaning to do for a while is to try and get something working with a 68HC11. My first job in software involved improving a 68HC11 device, I worked on them for several years before moving on to 16 and 32 bit microcontrollers about 25 years ago. Nic...

I have a couple of ideas to simplify reconfiguring the system: 1) use a signal from the rom expansion board to disable the CPU board rom - or even to keep say, the top 2k of address space for a monitor and change the rest with the bank switch. 2) use a spare input on a PLD to enable an alternative ...

The mistake I made was to stupidly solder in a couple of the sockets back to front, fortunately they were quite easy, though tedious, to remove and re-solder. I missed that in the photo. I can imagine how frustrating that was! I found a Euro card enclosure with power supply and 2x16 display at an e...

The initial post has now been updated for the final Part 4 of my CreatiVsion series, which presents my CreatiVision Mechanical Keyboard add-on to the Controller. This is also the culmination of my RetroChallenge 2024/10 project. This can be found here: Minimalist Europe Card Bus (MECB) – 6502 Creati...

Here's a quick view of the complete extension board... Well, I decided Saturday morning was as good a time as any, to commission an official MECB Backplane Extension PCB. MECB Backplane Extension v1.0 is now all done, and sent-off for manufacture. David, I'll get the gerbers etc. onto github soon, ...