Monotron - a 1980s style home computer written in Rust — Jonathan Pallant
Channel: Rust Belt Rust Conference
Date: 2018-11-27

I missed the simplicity of of computers like the C64 and the Apple II and I wondered if I could recreate something like that, but using the Cortex M4 devboard on my desk and a handful of resistors. Can you generate VGA without a video chip? Can you render text without enough RAM for a framebuffer? Can you read from a PS/2 keyboard? Can you get any audio out of it, while doing video at the same time? Can you do it all in Rust, and run tests on an actual PC? Will it run fast enough to be useful?

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Senior Embedded Systems Consultant at Cambridge Consultants, specialising in wireless communications systems. MEng in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Warwick, England. Inveterate tinkerer. Raspberry Pi enthusiast. Jonathan is a big fan of the Rust programming language, and manages a number of published crates, including for the Texas Instruments Stellaris Launchpad devkit and the Raspberry Pi SenseHat. Jonathan is also a member of the Rust Embedded Working Group and the organiser of #CambridgeRust. You can find Jonathan online through https://keybase.io/thejpster.