Ben Heck's Apple 1 build - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Jim95
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2014, 01:31:01 pm
content: Amp hour posted a link to this a few weeks ago ()Seems to be slightly more simple than I thought it would be, of course numerous problems would arise behind the camera.Out of interest has anyone on here built anything like this before. I'm considering having a go over my xmas break.The annoying thing about Bens build is that he hasn't released any build notes yet and he doesn't really go into much details in the videos. Just trying to gather a bit of info.Cheers

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2014, 02:29:07 pm
content: Quote from: Jim95 on November 28, 2014, 01:31:01 pmand he's acting a bit of stupid with the logic analyzer.... i had to stop watching when he started to "hunt" the bytes and trying to find which byte is that in the code dump.... he's more an actor than a engineer in those videos for E14.btw a built several such a computers using a similar technique - i was using ribbon cables to route the signals between the sockets soldered to veroboard. if you divide the ribbon to 4 wire wide strips, it's nice and tidy at the end of the dayand actually the construction technique works even for higher clocks like 8-12MHz. but of course you must not forget the decoupling.... and actually that soldering actor in the video was not even mentioning decoupling capsback in days i've built a Z80 one , couple of 51's and also a AVR (8515) with external RAM and eprom/flash , i used to love the flash memory chips which were pin compatible with eproms back in the days

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2014, 11:24:08 pm
content: Way back when men were men and computers were real computers I built my own Apple //e. The ROMs and a few custom chips were purchased as 'service spares' from Apple but the rest were standard TTL and memory chips.Why?Well, the standard //e came with only half the memory and the rest was on the 80-column card that fitted into slot #3 so I built mine with the full amount of memory on the board. Once that was working I then added a Z-80 co-processor and a parallel port which were also add on cards on the original system.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2014, 11:56:18 pm
content: I built a few machines hand-wired back in the mid to late 70s and the beginning of the 80s, I still have two of them in non-working condition. I wouldn't particularly want to do it again, hand wiring parallel buses isn't my idea of fun. Even if I did make one again, what do I do then? I get the achievement thing but if it's something I already did 35 odd years ago it's not something I'm much bothered about trying again!One of those machines was based on the General Instrument CP1600, the basis of the PIC, a device I, and many others, still use regularly now.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 01:52:09 am
content: Sadly a lot of waffle and using only about 20% of the time to impart actual knowledge.Nice gear tho'TWOT

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 01:58:25 am
content: To me it wasn't too slow, sure he could have crammed all the essentials in there but then it would be boring for others.No a big fan of the channel but this build was a good series. He made a couple of mistakes but hardly noticeable. One with a hex address the other one i don't remember anymore.Even if I did like it, I wouldn't replicate it because I don't have a need for a 1MHz (I think that's the oscillator he used) 6502 computer.

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 03:51:39 am
content: I don't often watch his channel but I don't see anything bad about it either. You can tell he gravitates towards graphic design, the case in this one was very detailed (I'd like to see it in person). He seems to be fairly new at electronics in general.The show is produced well no jiggle cam or other annoying stuff and it has educational inserts.Mjorton is another person I don't watch often but he seems to do pretty well (inexperienced but learning). He is certainly a good speaker and concerned about the way his show looks.I like that this stuff is out there everyone has to start somewhere.

author: Jim95
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 03:10:54 pm
content: Thanks for the responses.The reason I'm wanting to build one is because we are learning about computer architecture at uni and even though I've built many 'modern' pcs, I feel as though this would be a bigger learning curve. So its more of a learning experience than functionality

author: janengelbrecht
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 06:44:33 pm
content: Ben Heck: Cant really see anyone can get anything out of the mans videos ? He never goes into any kind of detail so people can replicate his stuff....so what the hell is the point ?

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 06:54:29 pm
content: Quote from: Jim95 on November 29, 2014, 03:10:54 pmIt taught me an awful lot, including soldering, how to use a 'scope (a very rare occurance that I had such a luxury), acquisition of general debugging and analytical skills as you're bound to make one or two mistakes, and the importance of decoupling and decent power buses. Even decoupling capacitors were a luxury to me in those days, as I found to my cost, and not even a scope would debug those problems as the best I had access to had only about a 1 meg bandwidth! In fact, if it worked first time, it probably showed you didn't learn anything new!

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 08:45:04 pm
content: Quote from: janengelbrecht on November 29, 2014, 06:44:33 pmIn this instance, it made me realize that building an 8bit computer isn't that difficult and might actually be both doable and fun for me. In other words, it was inspirational. Well done I'd say.

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 08:45:33 pm
content: Quote from: janengelbrecht on November 29, 2014, 06:44:33 pmthe purpose of ben hack show (in other words the soldering actor show) is to show something "fancy" and heavily promote element 14 during that... you should look at his show as element14 advertisement.. it's so simple

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 10:40:38 pm
content: The thing is that there is plenty of material out there if you don't know how simple addressing works, I mean you only need a clock run A15 to drive chip select to alternate between the RAM and the ROM and some little logic to exclude some ROM addresses. Not that it's really that helpful for newer hardware because memory is not as simple as it used to be.

author: BloodyCactus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2014, 02:02:01 am
content: for all the disparagement his show gets I think its good. Its about Element 14 trying building community, its an outreach and keeps their name out there. How many other companies are putting out interesting videos aimed at hobbyists?I wish more companies were doing like Farnell and producing content to watch like this.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2014, 02:26:05 am
content: Quote from: BloodyCactus on November 30, 2014, 02:02:01 amCompanies & Interesting & Videos == VERY_FEW;VERY_FEW &= Hobbyists == EVEN_FEWER;