DigicoolThings Forum

Hi All,

In a previous life I was an Electronics Engineer (though I mostly moved into software engineering side of things in my early career). Later on I shifted my career to science (and now mostly work in radio astronomy).

My first computers were 6800 (SWTPC) and 6809 based (built by my brothers when I was young) so it'll be nice to go down memory lane again with the MECB 6809. I was mainly brought up on Motorola computers and in high school had a TRS-80 CoCo and upgraded to an Amiga 500 (just as I started at University) ... and then in my second career a Mac PowerPC (which was kind of sort of Motorola'ish but by that stage the user was so far removed from the CPU that you'd never really know).

More recently (during the COVID-lockdown period) I brought back to life a severely broken Apple II that I purchased off e-Bay (it was my first time owning a 6502) - that was the most fun I had had in ages and sparked my interest in getting back to basic computers computers again (and the low-level debugging that I missed so much over the years). I've also got some recent "retro" devices like the Neo6502 (a modern 6502 board) and the Agon Light2 (a modern Z80 board) - which are nice but don't quite feel the same as a built-from-scratch computer (and there is no way my eyes/hands could handle the SMDs that are on those boards). So I'm really looking forward to going full-retro and building the MECB cards and having a play at making them all work together.

Thanks for making this project available to the world and for sharing your experiences.

Nice!! I'd been looking for a similar modern twist on my own upbringing as it seems you've found here too - though I wasn't quite around when the SWTPC was retailing - my first experience was a Hitachi Peach MB-6890, but otherwise a similar path - I later acquired a C64 instead of the Amiga 500 during high school, but otherwise similar right up to grabbing that Apple II during Covid lockdown!!

I forayed into Maximites and picomites for their cheapness and availability instead of the Agon light2, but seems we're both winding up here building MECBs for fun and contribution!

I think we're all looking forward to contributing a little ecosystem around this, hopefully doing my bit in time too, in between acquiring a stack of Hitachi Peaches from Japan for parallel fun & games on the Motorola 6809/Hitachi 6309 processor systems!

Anyhow, Welcome!! I hope you stay a while...

Oh wow, I remember salivating over pictures of the Hitachi Peach as a kid but could never afford one back then (much like the original Apple II's we had in our high school they were out of reach) - LOL, and we complain about the cost of fruit these days Anyway, they looked pretty nice though and would've loved to have seen one in real life!