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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 13th Jul 2013, 11:35 pm   #21
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

I'm a little bit surprised nobody has mentioned the 8048 or 8031/8032/8051/8052 series microcontrollers and their windowed erasable 87-series cousins - the 8051 series and later code compatible clones like the flash programmable atmel 89C series were firm favourites of mine for a long time.
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Old 13th Jul 2013, 11:42 pm   #22
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Then the 68000 came along and that was really nice, just like a proper computer.
Yes, my favourite of that generation of processors - I built up a lot of experience of 68000 on the Atari ST, which I used as my 'main' computer well into the years when everyone else was using PCs.

I suppose the notional rival of the 68000 was the 8086, but by the time I finally moved to PCs they were well into the Windows era when writing low-level code for them yourself was positively discouraged. If I'd owned PCs in the DOS era I probably would have got to know 8086 and later variants a lot better.
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Old 13th Jul 2013, 11:47 pm   #23
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I'm going to vote for the ARM
...And the ARM is now conveniently available to be played with in the form of the thoroughly British Raspberry Pi - although it's generally viewed as a Linux box by default, there is a free native Raspberry Pi version of RISCOS available for it as well.
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Old 14th Jul 2013, 12:08 am   #24
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8085, not perfect but wrote a lot of assembler for that, including a BASIC.
At one time I wrote some new firmware for 8085-based electronic front panels used on VHF/UHF ex-PMR radios - I never had an 8085 assembler and so I had to use a Z80 assembler to write all the code - it was a bit of a headache trying to remember which Z80 instructions the 8085 did have and which it didn't, especially as the Mnemonics were different.

For the 8085 RIM and SIM instructions (not present in the Z80 instruction set), I just placed the (fortunately fixed, single-byte) opcodes for those instructions inline with the code as defined bytes wherever I needed a RIM or a SIM instruction.
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Old 14th Jul 2013, 7:56 am   #25
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As a matter of interest what were you running an SC/MP in?
It was a system at work - I used to be a development engineer working on fruit machines!

I did buy an MK14 for fun but swapped it for a music synthesiser chip...

Richard
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Old 14th Jul 2013, 10:09 pm   #26
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

Playing with micros isn't really my primary skill area but I spent a lot of time playing with 8086 assembler in the dark days of DOS so I guess I have to say 8086 simply for the amount of code I wrote in assembler back then. Mainly for basic I/O via the parallel port to decode or program things.
I can remember debugging with Microsoft Codeview before moving onto more powerful debugging tools.

I also have a soft spot for the 680x series from Motorola.
I spent a lot of time reverse engineering car ECUs many years ago and custom versions of this micro were very popular in japanese cars about 20-25 years ago. I learned an awful lot about writing efficient routines in assembler by studying the code in car ECUs and this helped me a lot when writing code for other platforms. You can do an awful lot with just 4kb of ROM and about a hundred bytes of RAM
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Old 15th Jul 2013, 6:34 pm   #27
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I also have a soft spot for the 680x series from Motorola.
In my collection of micro oddities I have a curious little thing which is a 68xx dev/demo kit supplied in what looks like a small paint tin.

Hidden on a stud on the underside is a mini CD with the Codewarrior IDE on it, and inside the tin there's a small battery powered development board with an 8-pin 68HC908 on it, along with an RS232 lead to connect it to the computer running the IDE. This little system provided me with my first tolerable experience of embedded 'C' after years and years of being a diehard assembly language man.
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Old 17th Jul 2013, 9:40 am   #28
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Well apart from a little work on the Z80 microprocessor many years ago, I've been stood on the sidelines watching developments. As an analogue engineer, and proud of it, I was prepared to use discrete digital (4000 series was my favourite and then 74HC series) when necessary, but could not warm to digital systems for some reason.
Until about 2 years ago when I was shown the AVR series of devices from Atmel. They do a whole range of devices, but for me they score with the 'Mega' and 'Tiny' range of microcontroller which are more than adequate for my use at home.
The only downside was that my colleague who introduced me to the AVR series would only use 'C' for programming. The size and complexity of some of his software he now uses, it just wouldn't be feasible to use machine code.
This meant I had to bite the bullet and learn a bit of 'C' - something I thought I would really never do. I can't call myself proficient with 'C', I certainly can't call myself an expert, but I can turn round small projects based around the smaller AVR microcontrollers. One of my first was an infra red remote control for my woodburning stove. Sounds ludicrous doesn't it, but it's nice not to have to jump out of my comfy chair to adjust the airflow to the woodburner. Now, if only I could devise an automatic log loader....
Microcontrollers certainly have their uses, but the more powerful devices are just too much for my meagre requirements. How times change.

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Old 17th Jul 2013, 6:12 pm   #29
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I was prepared to use discrete digital (4000 series was my favourite and then 74HC series) when necessary, but could not warm to digital systems for some reason.
I have always been the exact opposite - I'm a lot stronger on the digital side than on analogue - some aspects of analogue still seem like witchcraft to me, especially RF.

Throughout the nineties I worked from a small local depot / workshop with one other field engineer - he loved digital electronics but hated microprocessors. Due to the nature of what we did, we were forever making test rigs and other electronic tools to assist us in our everyday duties - I was often absolutely dumbfounded by what he managed to make using only standard IC logic (I was by then routinely using microcontrollers for almost everything, even for jobs that I probably could have used 2-3 logic ICs for.)

Anyone interested in checking out the small Atmel microcontrollers could do worse than to get hold of an 'Arduino' - for example, an 'Arduino Uno'. - Basically a cheap microcontroller development board for which there is a freely available open source Integrated Development Environment and a big user community. The programming language is essentially 'C', but it comes with lots of simple example programs (which are for some reason called 'sketches' in Arduino-speak) and a lot of pre-written libraries for accomplishing various common tasks very quickly, such as, for example, controlling an alphanumeric LCD display.
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Old 17th Jul 2013, 8:44 pm   #30
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

I guess I'm slightly different again... My main skill is RF design. But when it comes to MCUs etc I only want to work in assembler. If I need to write a GUI on a PC then I go to the other extreme and use VB. One of the first things I worked out with early versions of VB was how to write raw 8086 assembler within a VB project by creating a dll with my raw assembly code in it. I didn't feel in control until I could do this

I have programmed in C a few times but I always avoid it if at all possible.

I also like the AVR Mega range because the instruction set suits me better than PICs.

Another favourite was the old Hitachi H8S series. I only ever used this a few times (long ago) but I liked the 16bit architecture plus the abundance of 32 bit registers. This allowed me to run some very fast and versatile routines inside the RAM. i.e. I wrote code that dumped a routine into RAM and then ran the routine. At the time this MCU seemed like a rocketship compared to the 680x and the various PICs I'd played with.
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Old 21st Jul 2013, 7:38 pm   #31
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Being just a lad in the 80s 6502 (via the BBC micro and its inbuilt assembler) was what I got most proficient with but also dabbled a bit with Z80 coding and 68000.

Without going too much into gory detail I was subsequently a bit "distracted" by all the bright lights, sounds and other attractions of the 1990s rave music scene and let oding/programming slip for a fair few years. Ironically by the time my life had settled down a bit and I could easily afford the kit to develop software I'd lost interest to a great extent.

All that said I'd say Z80 was ultimately my favourite...

Very recently I discovered arduinos (based around the AVR) and have been (slowly) getting back into programming again..
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Old 22nd Jul 2013, 12:55 am   #32
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Very recently I discovered Arduinos (based around the AVR) and have been (slowly) getting back into programming again
I heard about Arduinos at around the same time as I started hearing about the Raspberry Pi, but I have only just acquired an Arduino Uno myself.

They're great for getting an idea or project up and running in very short order, because the hardware is more or less already built and the numerous libraries make most common microprocessor tasks - like precisely timed delays, bitwise I/O, I2C communication or A to D conversion - very straightforward.
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Old 8th May 2015, 9:16 pm   #33
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

At college I did my early learning with the 6502 and then Z80 but when I came to go on a bit for a college project I built a system from scratch using the 6802.

I found the 6802 with its onboard RAM very useful and it was capable of interfacing directly with the 6522 VIA (another very useful chip). With a 2K EPROM, and a further 2k of RAM with a little address decoding and a LCD display and keypad with their attendant electronics there was a simple (relatively) system. Originally a bit of hassle to get going but finally very reliable and when I fired it up recently it worked perfectly after more than 25 years. Not bad for a bus / card based system built on Veroboard which the lecturers advised would never work and did not want to be heavily associated with.

After college I built an EPROM programmer interface for it and so can develop software but unfortunately do not have an eraser. Still that is perhaps the lesser problem.

I have brought it out of mothballs and intend to use it on the bench for digital signal generation etc.

Last edited by ionburn; 8th May 2015 at 9:17 pm. Reason: Missing letter (spelling)
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Old 11th May 2015, 5:52 am   #34
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

I have to agree about Arduino - I buy the bare-bones 328 IC and with a crystal and a couple of caps on a breadboard you have enough to knock up a project, Online support is fantastic so for testing ideas, it just doesn't get any easier.

Microcontrollers were around when I was a kid, obviously, but making a Z80 or a 6502 or whatever do anything useful was not for a young kid in his bedroom - nowadays with Arduino or PIC (which I also love working with) and a breadboard my six year old self would have been in electronics heaven.

I will be introducing my grandsons to them both at the earliest opportunity, that's for sure. Even the youngest kid will have enough attention span to build something that works and I'm really looking forward to that. Fun times ahead!
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Old 11th May 2015, 9:46 am   #35
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

I'm wondering how good an Arduino or a Pi would be for digital signal-processing.

A simple RF front-end [NE602 mixing down to a suitably low IF?] followed by an Arduino or Pi could be the 21st-century version of the 'crystal set'.
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Old 11th May 2015, 11:06 am   #36
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A simple RF front-end [NE602 mixing down to a suitably low IF?] followed by an Arduino or Pi could be the 21st-century version of the 'crystal set'.
Only if it is possible to power all that electronics off received RF energy...
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Old 11th May 2015, 11:48 am   #37
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

I still have my 6800 Motorola development system which I got as part of a Motorola "Symposium" in 1976.
One of my colleagues wasn’t interested so I still have his unmade kit with the chips still in the folder in the blister pack.
We used an Intel 8080 development system for Prom blowing and eventually the product used the Cosmac CDP1802 which was the only processor that could take sufficient radiation.
I then in my own time built a system around the Fairchild F8 chip set (often used in one armed bandits) before building the Nascom 1(Z80) in early 1979 (having changed job).
Then I moved on to ready built computers CBM Pet, Apple II Sharp MZ80K and the Tatung Einstein amongst them.
When I saw my first IBM PC in around 1983 I totally lost all interest in computers
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Old 12th May 2015, 2:19 am   #38
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

This thread brought back a few memories that's for sure.

Cut my coding teeth on 6502 and Z80 but have a real fondness for MC680x0.
Most work coding these days is in high level stuff that just isn't interesting.
In the halcyon days talk used to be of the smallest amount of code used to perform a task. Nowadays even a basic hello world uses MB of DLL/Libraries and no one seems to care about efficiency.

Use PICs these days for tinkering. No favouritism over AVR, just what i bought at the time i needed a micro.


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Old 12th May 2015, 11:47 am   #39
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

As regards 6502 vs Z80, 6502 wins in my book. You might think the a couple of 8-bit index registers laughable compared to 16 bit registers in the Z80, however the way they are used makes them better than a Z80. I wrote a few games on the acorn atom, take plotting a sprite, you need a table with the picture of the sprite, a table for masking the pixels that need to be plotted, and an index onto the screen where to put them. Two index registers combined with pointers in zero page RAM made this a very quick piece of code. I tried the same task on the ZX spectrum a mate owned and it was a lot more difficult/slower.

When I started work, I used the 8048. Hmm, not a fan. Then the 8051, marvelous little processor and I wrote nearly 48K of assembler to power one of these. The 8051 was quite good for maths, indeed we used an automotive version (better timer-counters) to measure a frequency that varied between 4.5 and 5.1 KHz to better than 1 part per million, signal processing done on the little 8051. Also used a 'C' compiler with it and whilst the 8051 instruction set is not very high level language friendly it did actually work rather well.

Later I used the 6810 which is an 8/16 bit microcontroller. Brilliant little processor.

If I had to do a project using any of these processors then I'd choose the 6810. But my fondest memories will always be the 6502.

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Old 12th May 2015, 11:53 am   #40
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Default Re: Microprocessor favourites?

The NS8750PD was a great device for quick development work. It was a CPU with a socket on the top to plug in an EPROM. I still have a few, but now use PIC Micros.

Daniel.
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