Project Definition

This isn't work

We can do whatever we like, even if it makes no sense. But we know it's good to finish things.

Having settled on the BBC micro (beeb) as the host platform for our 65816 experiments, and not wanting to over-reach, we defined a few milestones:

• Level 0 is a 65816 in a beeb running off the 2MHz host clock
• Level 1 would have an SRAM chip and run faster when not accessing the host
• Level 2 would be a TUBE-connected coprocessor instead of a substitution.

As it happens, we subdivided Level 1, and the L1B revision looks like it will be able to serve as Level 2.

Interesting things to finish

• a 65816 running in a Beeb. Or in some other 6502-like platform
• a single-board computer
• a TUBE coprocessor for a Beeb

Hardware technologies we find interesting

• CPUs - variants of existing, peculiar upgrades, historical re-enactment
• CPLDs - medium complexity programmable logic, good for glue
• FPGAs - suitable for homebrew CPU
• Lego - particularly the mindstorms kits

Software technologies...

• BASIC, for retro-computing purity
• FORTH, for bootstrapping and an acid test of commenting discipline
• C, for lowest common denominator programming
• Python, for productivity, once we've got some basic level of competence
• all that other jazz which we're unlikely to port to our hardware