It's been a while so I might not recall all the details. This is what I did on a 6502 in the 80's (the order might not be exactly right): - Write drivers

It's been a while so I might not recall all the details. This is what I did on a 6502 in the 80's (the order might not be exactly right): - Write drivers (in assembler) for external UARTs and parallel port chips - Write (in assembler) enough code to get the very basics of Forth going - Now in Forth, write the standard set of Forth words - Write a rudimentary text editor - Write a floppy disk driver and file system management code - Now I have a Forth computer At that point I started to use Forth for robotics. Quadrature encoder inputs. A/D, D/A and digital I/O. Eventually doing real-time PID loop. Control a single motor. Build a robot arm. Control five or six motors. Build an external LED hexadecimal display. Talk to it in Forth. Build a buttons and knobs control panel for the robot. Talk to it in Forth. Have loads of fun and learn a ton. In other words, I had a very specific project in mind and saw it through from a bunch of chips on the workbench to a finished robot arm with user interface. There are a million lessons to be learned in such a project. I've actually thought about dusting off my old files and designs and putting together some kind of an educational kit to launch on Kickstarter. It could be a lot of fun.