Hello Digicool Friends

[MikeFrank]

Hi there,
My name is Mike. I spent a career as an embedded systems engineer until I got fed up with the corporate environment. After walking under a sign that read, "We compete for Shareholders" one too many times to get to my desk, I packed by bags and left. I was badly burned out and I tell both my sons that if they are ever not happy in their jobs to go find something else immediately.
It's a long story, but I'm here for the 6809. I got my first computer for Christmas in 1981. It was a Commodore Vic-20. I recall my first programs were a character generator for Dungeons and Dragons and another that moved a sprite of a dirt bike across the screen. They were very simple things, but I had fun doing it. It took me a while to get through University, but I did it. My senior project in '97 was a 6800 single board automotive computer. While I can make my way around some code, I don't consider myself a software expert by any stretch. I spent hours looking for the photo I had, but can't find it. I did manage to find my hand drawn initial block diagram and a memory map though. That was the last time I worked with the 6800 until now. In my career I did a lot of work with 8051's and the Motorola MPC555 and the Power PC for military aviation electronics and then on to ARM and FPGA based processors for a long stint in medical electronics.
This may (or may not) sound like I know what I'm doing, but I spend the vast majority of my time scratching my head wondering why things don't work. And even better is when I have to figure out why something IS working.

Well, I guess that's all I've got to say for now. I'll see you around.

[Editor]

Welcome Mike. I can definitely empathise with your corporate work experience. Unfortunately, for most of us, we don’t realise how much we “over did it” (to our health detriment), until we have retrospect. I remember being proud of working a 120hour week, and taking holidays so that I could finish projects un-interrupted. Crazy times. I suspect this is all too common in our fields.

It’s great to hear about some of your background. It’s was also interesting that you said: “I spend the vast majority of my time scratching my head wondering why things don't work”. To me, that is the hallmark of a good engineer!
It is because we do scratch our heads wondering why things don’t work, that we are driven to fining the solution. Most people don’t give it a second thought, and just say: It’s broken, time for a new one!

Anyway, enough of my banter. Welcome onboard, and I do hope you enjoy your 6809 discovery journey! Of the 8-bit processors that I’ve coded for, the 6809 remains my preference due to it’s relatively powerful instruction set and logical addressing modes.

[bugeyedcreepy]

Hi there,
My name is Mike. I spent a career as an embedded systems engineer until I got fed up with the corporate environment. After walking under a sign that read, "We compete for Shareholders" one too many times to get to my desk, I packed by bags and left. I was badly burned out and I tell both my sons that if they are ever not happy in their jobs to go find something else immediately.
It's a long story, but I'm here for the 6809. I got my first computer for Christmas in 1981. It was a Commodore Vic-20. I recall my first programs were a character generator for Dungeons and Dragons and another that moved a sprite of a dirt bike across the screen. They were very simple things, but I had fun doing it. It took me a while to get through University, but I did it. My senior project in '97 was a 6800 single board automotive computer. While I can make my way around some code, I don't consider myself a software expert by any stretch. I spent hours looking for the photo I had, but can't find it. I did manage to find my hand drawn initial block diagram and a memory map though. That was the last time I worked with the 6800 until now. In my career I did a lot of work with 8051's and the Motorola MPC555 and the Power PC for military aviation electronics and then on to ARM and FPGA based processors for a long stint in medical electronics.
This may (or may not) sound like I know what I'm doing, but I spend the vast majority of my time scratching my head wondering why things don't work. And even better is when I have to figure out why something IS working.

Well, I guess that's all I've got to say for now. I'll see you around.

Hey Mike! Good to see you on-board! I'm a big fan of the 6809 myself and plan to stick with it because of my first computer, but only because I don't have the time to learn much else - not that I know all that much about the 6809 to start with... -_-