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Sounds like fun. Around the mid-80s I tried to build a custom GPU with dedicated raster op hardware, all with hand-wired 74LS chips and VRAM, and connecting to
by tlb 11y ago
Sounds like fun. Around the mid-80s I tried to build a custom GPU with dedicated raster op hardware, all with hand-wired 74LS chips and VRAM, and connecting to an Apple ][ bus. Parts of it sort of worked -- it at least generated a valid video signal and it could copy 16x16 memory blocks, but it was damn hard to debug with just an analog scope.
You should decide what the rules will be for using logic analyzers. I won't think less of you if you allow modern debug technology.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoI should clarify I'm not the author of the project. I just posted it because I think it's really amazingly cool what he's managing to get done on a breadboard.
- pvg 11y agoThey had logic analyzers in 1984, right? I think that's the general rule the author is trying to stick to.
- jacquesm 11y agoLogic analyzers definitely existed but cost stopped them from being present anywhere but professional r&d facilities. Scopes were omnipresent, if you had a logic analyzer in 1984 you were a local god and people would regularly offer you their firstborn for access.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoWe had Intel hardware logic analysers before 1984. I used them at the Mullard factory (Philips semiconductors) in Southampton to debug Signetics 2650 embedded controller problems around about 1980. Of course that's a long time ago so my memory might not be 100% precise. I wish I had kept a copy of the drawings for some of those projects, still look back fondly on those things, hardware was so much more fun in some ways than software which is what I do now.