This is pretty awesome. Someone is working on a software emulation of my old computer from 1983.
There was already one made about ten years ago to run in MAME but this new one tries to recreate the full hardware experience of using it. It’s still at an early alpha stage but it’s already looking pretty promising.
I have an ulterior motive in wanting to see this. I want to write new 8-bit software with it.
You can see a video of it working here:
The printed circuit board for the original TEC-1, circa 1983. This photograph is of a rare unmade kit from that period. It’s now in the process of being constructed for the first time, 35 years after it was mailed out.
After catching up with Ken Stone a few weeks back I thought I’d take on the task of disassembling and commenting on the original MON1 ROM which I wrote back way back in 1982-83.
I still have a way to go with commenting and labelling the games: NIM, LUNAR LANDER and INVADERS and the TEXTBANNER and TUNEPLAYER but they’re all underway.
All of the tunes, text strings, frequency and 7 segment tables are there.
I used to be quite fluent in Z80 opcodes back in those days but moved on the other things subsequently. With my trusty Rodney Zaks in hand I jumped back in and it’s mostly back. Plus I’m pretty certain that I learned a few new things too along the way.
It’s really quite cool to see code that you wrote 35 years ago–and only had a vague recollection of–come back to life. I only once saw this listing printed out but that was on thermal paper and that faded away after a fairly short time.
This stuff was all hand coded and those (few) hexadecimal relative jumps and subtractions were done without access to a fancy calculator. I didn’t get my hands on a real assembler until I got a Microbee a year or two later.
https://github.com/jhlagado/TEC-1
If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, start here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEC-1
Explaining microprocessors to people in 1982-83
This illustration is a composite of sketches Ken Stone and I made to attempt to explain the workings of CPUs and machine code to hobbyists back in the early 80s.
This was published in issue 10 of Talking Electronics in early 83 to go with our TEC-1 computer kit. For a few years the TEC-1 was the cheapest, most accessible way for Australian hobbyists to enter the mysterious world of computing.
Before long of course that space would be filled with consumer systems that could actually do things that were useful apart from just learning how to program.
Spent the day with Ken Stone. Most of the time was spent reminiscing over 1980s tech. Here’s Ken, with our creation, the TEC-1. Coming up for it’s 35th birthday this year!🎉💪🌶
I posted about this back in 2012 https://plus.google.com/+JohnAHardy/posts/j8wxTwBhSUf
The TEC-1 even has its own Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEC-1
A cool thing I discovered this evening is that I am mentioned in Wikipedia for something I designed back in 1983.
This was a Z80 based computer kit that sold in Australia for about $100. I made the original circuit and programmed the ROM, my friend Ken Stone designed the final PCB art and got it ready in a kit form for Talking Electronics magazine.
I was amused to discover that the design was even knocked off and cloned. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/739140/
Fun times.Â
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