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Now I'm very tempted to build a 3D printer with an 8-bit home computer and vintage parts.

dcminter 2y ago
That sounds like a delightful project! This contemporary book from Usborne demonstrates the point that basic stepper controls from an 8-bit computer were well within hobbyist reach: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTZ2tQMmpyOWtsRFk/view?resourcekey=0-zt3ZcOMMA30T_LJlUEzoDQ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTZ2tQMmpyOWtsRFk... I do think that the limitations of memory (and disk) will require some ingenuity in 3D printing more than the most trivial procedurally defined objects!
- Suppafly 2y ago
  That's a great book, it looks so simplistic and then the next thing you know it's teaching you about resistors and soldering and programming, all in like 50 pages of mostly graphics.
aforwardslash 2y ago
Just buy an old ender 3, they came with stock 8bit cpus :)
wilg 2y ago
id watch a youtube of this
TuringTourist 2y ago
Make your own 8-bit computer on breadboard a la Ben Eater for bonus points
Suppafly 2y ago
My son is into vintage computers and I'm pretty sure I could make a 3d printer from the old c64s, disk drives, and printers in my basement. The hot end would be the only issue and I'm pretty sure you could rig one up from a glue gun or soldering iron.
- stevekemp 2y ago
  Floating point maths would be hard, and fitting the model in 64k would be a challenge - but paging could resolve that, or streaming/paging from disk if you assume something like CP/M. Logically it's a simple project, though the devil is always in the details!
  - kragen 2y ago
    Floating-point was ubiquitous in the BASIC interpreters on early home computers. It was just slow. CP/M didn't really do paging, although you could read and write 128-byte records to disk. But CP/M disks were typically only 90 kibibytes, or maybe up to a mebibyte for 8-inch floppies. And a lot of hobbyist home computers omitted disk drives because they were too expensive.
    - stevekemp 2y ago
      Sure floating point is possible, but if you're thinking of something like a 6502 or Z80 you'd have to implement it yourself - no maths co-processor, or dedicated instructions for it. In terms of paging I was thinking of paging in later layers of data from disk, perhaps from a large file, perhaps from a series of files. But CP/M certainly did have support for paging RAM, in 3.x, if your hardware supported it. (My own emulator, and the hardware I have running genuine CP/M are all running 2.x so no paged RAM there. Shame!)
      - kragen 2y ago
        Yeah, people did do overlays a lot on CP/M. If you were using a 6502 or Z80 in the late 70s you wouldn't have to write the floating-point routines; you could just call the ones in the BASIC interpreter you probably had in ROM. They'd still be slow. As for paging RAM, do you mean bank switching? The 8085 and Z80 didn't have MMUs, so you couldn't do "paging" in the sense people normally understand it today.
        stevekemp 2y ago
kragen 2y ago
I'm very interested to hear about the results if you do. If I'm wrong, you'll be able to show me how!

That sounds like a delightful project! This contemporary book from Usborne demonstrates the point that basic stepper controls from an 8-bit computer were well within hobbyist reach: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTZ2tQMmpyOWtsRFk/view?resourcekey=0-zt3ZcOMMA30T_LJlUEzoDQ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTZ2tQMmpyOWtsRFk... I do think that the limitations of memory (and disk) will require some ingenuity in 3D printing more than the most trivial procedurally defined objects!

Suppafly 2y ago
That's a great book, it looks so simplistic and then the next thing you know it's teaching you about resistors and soldering and programming, all in like 50 pages of mostly graphics.

aforwardslash 2y ago

Just buy an old ender 3, they came with stock 8bit cpus :)

wilg 2y ago

id watch a youtube of this

TuringTourist 2y ago

Make your own 8-bit computer on breadboard a la Ben Eater for bonus points

Suppafly 2y ago

My son is into vintage computers and I'm pretty sure I could make a 3d printer from the old c64s, disk drives, and printers in my basement. The hot end would be the only issue and I'm pretty sure you could rig one up from a glue gun or soldering iron.

stevekemp 2y ago
Floating point maths would be hard, and fitting the model in 64k would be a challenge - but paging could resolve that, or streaming/paging from disk if you assume something like CP/M. Logically it's a simple project, though the devil is always in the details!
- kragen 2y ago
  Floating-point was ubiquitous in the BASIC interpreters on early home computers. It was just slow. CP/M didn't really do paging, although you could read and write 128-byte records to disk. But CP/M disks were typically only 90 kibibytes, or maybe up to a mebibyte for 8-inch floppies. And a lot of hobbyist home computers omitted disk drives because they were too expensive.
  - stevekemp 2y ago
    Sure floating point is possible, but if you're thinking of something like a 6502 or Z80 you'd have to implement it yourself - no maths co-processor, or dedicated instructions for it. In terms of paging I was thinking of paging in later layers of data from disk, perhaps from a large file, perhaps from a series of files. But CP/M certainly did have support for paging RAM, in 3.x, if your hardware supported it. (My own emulator, and the hardware I have running genuine CP/M are all running 2.x so no paged RAM there. Shame!)
    - kragen 2y ago
      Yeah, people did do overlays a lot on CP/M. If you were using a 6502 or Z80 in the late 70s you wouldn't have to write the floating-point routines; you could just call the ones in the BASIC interpreter you probably had in ROM. They'd still be slow. As for paging RAM, do you mean bank switching? The 8085 and Z80 didn't have MMUs, so you couldn't do "paging" in the sense people normally understand it today.
      - stevekemp 2y ago

kragen 2y ago

I'm very interested to hear about the results if you do. If I'm wrong, you'll be able to show me how!