Homelab changes

[djrm]

Festivities over for the day, this is what Ive been doing recently...

Ive taken a big decision to switch my primary computing platform to macOS and for far I'm very glad I have.
Ive been a Dos, Windows, and Linux user many years and never had anything to do with Macs - even scorned there practice of seemingly locking people into their infrastructure with over priced trinkets.
Since the change of Apple computers to the arm ARM platform Ive take an interest and have been pleasantly surprised with what I heard.
Ive been meaning to try a MacMini ever since the M2 chip came out but kept putting it off.

A series of events have spurred me on and I recently decided to get a Mac all-in-one computer replacing my complete system, its early days but so far I've not had to reboot my linux or Windows desktop machines.
The difficulties I have had where compatibility was a hurdle have been circumvented by having Linux (native ARM64) and Windows (Intel emulation) running as VMs - this has been fine and quite easy to setup too. Everything is new with the Mac but I have my old dual boot disk mounted so I copy data across as I need it.

The NTFS partition can be read from MacOS, the Linux partition needs to be accessed from the Linux VM. I couldn't get my eprom programmer working on the Mac, but it does work in the Windows VM, with Windows7 installed Wincupl is quite happy too.

The things which made me change eventually include Broken Windows SSD, Faulty monitor backlight, Windows10 end of life, New photo printer needing supported OS (ideally Mac or Windows) for makers full suite of software.

MacOS is very slick and easy to use but doesn't limit you in any way, The advertising and AI nonsense finding its way into windows isn't a problem either. as you can perhaps tell, I'm loving it. Ive spent more than I could have down if I just bought a Mac Mini but the results are great - the Mac monitor is excellent with high definition and superb colour. I did mis my old huge 32" screen but I'm getting used to the new 23" and I can run two monitors if ever I need to.

I'm slowly getting my compilers and tools working on the Mac - I'm now going to standardise on using VScode as build environment instead of a mesh-mash of build scrips and command line incantations. VScode will support makefiles so that's what I'm looking at now. Ive been using platform for espp32/arduino/picp2040 projects for a while but I have a lot to learn still.

Apart from a few bits and pieces I haven't done much with the MECB systems but this is changing now I should have a bit more time for it although I've been working on real vintage computers a bit as well.

Happy Christmas to everybody, David.

[Editor]

Festivities over for the day, this is what Ive been doing recently...

Hi David,

That was an interesting story.

On a related note, I spent most of my career in IT, so everything work based was mostly Windows based. However, in the years after Apple went to Intel processors (around 2007 if I remember correctly), I made the jump to an iMac for my “primary” home system.

This lead to then convincing the wider family to also transition to Mac.

Interestingly enough, this was all driven by frustration at constantly having to support family members with their Windows “issues”.
One thing about being in IT, when you leave work for the day, your work follows you home, as you’re also the “Help Desk” for the computing problems of everyone you know!

Once I had the wider family transitioned to Mac, pretty much all of the constant family computer support requirement disappeared!

Basically (compared to Windows), the Mac (OS/X) “just works”, and is relatively intuitive for non-technical folk!

Over the years, I have remained impressed with the Mac as my primary home computer. Back-up is a non-issue (with Time Machine), hardware upgrade is absolute simplicity, OS upgrades are free (and effortless), and overall, it continues to “just work”!

At the beginning of this year, I upgraded my 10yo 27” 5K iMac, to the latest M4 Mac Mini, and (once again), the upgrade was simplicity, and performance is flawless. It's also a testament that my previous iMac lasted me 10 years!

I still have a couple of reasonably powerful Windows PC’s I use daily. One for my work, and one for my VR / gaming.

But, upgrading the Windows PC’s is never a simple experience, always seeming to consume a day (at least), and things like Windows 10 -> Windows 11 upgrade, and all the annoying things that go along with it, remain a pain.

Happy Christmas to everybody, David.

All the best for the year ahead. I’m supposed to be having a break, but I seem to still be at it, even through the holiday period!

Kind Regards
Greg

[djrm]

Here is my mob of MECBs, celebrating the new year by all running at at the same time. Not shown are a few additional I/O cars and extenders and the spare 6809 and 68HC11 cpus, I need yet another backplane or two. I started building MECB cards in September 2024 but built many more in 2024 partly so I didn't have to keep swapping roms and cards around. I have a dual 6522 card waiting to be completed.
Left to right are:
Z79 Forth with 63C09E and CF memory and TeleVideo terminal
Creativision showing on TV above
6809 Dream green OLED computer
65C02 Hopper with amber OLED display
AIM-65 with SD2IDE disk and 6845 video on Hitachi monitor.
Ive been repairing some real 5.25 inch floppy drives, perhaps an MECB disk interface would be interesting to exercise them. I could use a Z180 system too for testing S100 cards. I wonder if I'll get around to much this year.
I should get them into cases, I started but got sidetracked, you know how it is perhaps. I have found some cardboard boxes just the right size for a set of boards on a backplane which is handy.
Best regards, David.

[djrm]

Greetings, As part of my home-lab computer changes I'm trying to consolidate software projects into a more unified structure. Ive decided to concentrate on using VS Code as an IDE for the various compilers and programming tools.

Initially I tried using a modified version of Greg's build script and although it worked just fine I found having to create versions for the different tools I'm using a bit tedious.

I then looked into the possibility of creating new targets for PlatformIO, I'm already using this for RaspberryPi, ESP32, and Arduino projects. Unfortunateley this looks like a non-starter mainly because I dont have any Ide about how to go about it.

I then started to look at VScode extensions and found 'Make support and task provider' this one uses any conventional makefile in you project and creates link to create the individual targets found in the file. Ive tried it with some of my own and other peoples projects and it seems really useful. So I have come full circle in a way, all I need to do it to make sure my projects have a makefile and I'm good to go in a unified way using a variety of build tools.

VS Code also has a simple built in serial console which the makefile can use to drive S-record transfers or serial eprom programming.
My version of Z79Forth by Francois Laagel uses a makefile with ams6809, this took just a few tweaks to make it work on the iMac

My next project will be to modify the work of a rero programmer from Aukland, David Latham, to have '6502-retro-os' with its SDcard file system working on my AIM-65 hardware. this project on Github uses the cc65 toolchain together with a makefile and is happy in my new VS Code environment.

CC65 is probably the most versatile toolchain for the 6502 because it consists of both assembller and C compiler. it is well used by the C64 community. It has a versatile general purpose makefile which can automat the task of building a multi file project too.

Some of my projects use a DOS only assembler, I'm not sure hat to do about these just yet. I can continue and use Windows on a VM, use wine emulator, or probably best to convert the sources to use a native assembler.

Other tools under investigation include Doxyfile and Graphviz and although Ive used these a lot in the past for C projects they seem to be of little use with assembler projects, shame. There is a VS Code plugin though and it works just fine.

Finally, here is a screenshot of EMil's OLED project's makefile in VS Code with some commands to send the S record file to Assist09 for testing.

Enough rambling, David.

[Editor]

Here is my mob of MECBs...

That's a nice collection. I wish I had mine as organised as yours!
I seem to only have the space for one setup running at a time. So, I have a pile of MECB cards, that I borrow from.

I also should build a few more, as I'm always swapping PLD's and reprogramming ROM's for my existing cards.

I really should also spend some time in 3D design, as I've had a thought of making a "cube" style case for some time now.
Always thinking I'll get on to this when I have a completed system that would benefit from a case (and we now have a few completed systems!).

At the moment I'm visuallising a U shaped card cage, with swappable panels for the front, back, and top (depending on system).
Cooling might be an issue, requiring perhaps a suitable side mounted fan? (slow & quiet)

Then there is the issue of whether we need to route I/O connections to a back mounted I/O panel (and how best to do that?).
Also, what to do with the power (input & power switch). Perhaps more headers required, and a rear of case PCB?

Either way, I picture a nice cube shape as the finished look.

As always... lots of plans, lots to think about, and lots to do.

[djrm]

Either way, I picture a nice cube shape as the finished look.

I was wondering if a cube with some individual panels which could be easily replaced and customised, perhaps joined together with hinges for easy access too. I could cut some out of acrylic perhaps. A flat USB charger with fig8 connectoor could be built in as a base maybee (ive just bought something like that and it can power several MECB systems quite happily.

Food for thought, David.