TFoC: FPGA & Forth = VGA
(This article is part of the The Fabric of Computing series: in search of simplicity) Here is a fun project, created from start to finish by Matthias Koch, as part of his Mecrisp implementation of...
View ArticleTFoC - PDP-8 in 256 lines of C
Always in search of the essential “fabric” of computing, I decided to create yet another PDP-8 emulator. In plain C, and in as few lines of code as possible - without resorting to obfuscated C. It...
View ArticlePDP-8/L & DF32 disk on FPGA
As final entry in this PDP-8 saga (for now), I’d like to present an FPGA implementation of a small but very functional setup by Ian Schofield of a PDP-8/L with serial console and a whopping 32-kiloword...
View ArticleEZ-Retro is a Z80 running CP/M
And now something completely different! I’ve always been fascinated by those 8-bit computers that started it all. As a teenager, I spent many hours reading about them, but never could afford a Z80...
View ArticleEZ-Retro Z80 - part 2
Getting CP/M working on this two-chips-plus-a-blue-pill setup took more time than I thought, especially on the software side. This week, I’ll turn Forth into a peek-and-poke monitor for the eZ80,...
View ArticleJET today - there's a lot to do!
Sooo… with all this talk about Unicorns and Ambitions, it’s now time to walk the walk. I’m focusing my efforts on 3 repositories: JET is the over-arching collection where all the pieces of JET come...
View ArticleSMA Solar readout - part 1
This is the first post of a 3-part series about reading out an SMA solar inverter over Bluetooth and displaying some readings every few seconds. Long-time readers may remember the Solar at last weblog...
View ArticleSMA Solar readout - part 2
(Part 2 of the SMA Solar readout series) Here is the hardware, with its three main components - LCD, µC, and Bluetooth: The bottom is wired up using my favourite one-off soldered-kynar-wire technique:...
View ArticleSMA Solar readout - part 3
(Part 3 of the SMA Solar readout series) With everything working as intended, it’s time to wrap things up. As this unit only has an LCD sticking out and no other controls (i.e. It Should Just Work when...
View ArticleTFoC - A minimal computer
(This article is part of the The Fabric of Computing series: in search of simplicity) With today’s programming languages, it’s easy to ignore what goes on inside. Maybe you’ve never even bothered to...
View ArticleTFoC - A compiler in 256 LoC
(This article is part of the The Fabric of Computing series: in search of simplicity) The previous TFoC post was about a truly minimal setup, capable of just very simple computation. This time, let’s...
View ArticleWinding down, switching gears
Let me get right to the point: the scheduled daily weekly posts on this JeeLabs weblog are coming to an end. I’m going to move away-and-onwards from the “blogosphere”. There are several reasons for...
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