LT6502: A 6502-based homebrew laptop

I wonder how long the battery lasts. The LCD backlight probably draws more power than the CPU (<0.1W, even with no special low-power idle modes.)

How about a cassette tape storage?

I sometimes wonder what the alternate reality where semiconductor advances ended in the eighties would look like.

We might have had to manage with just a few MB of RAM and efficient ARM cores running at maybe 30 MHz or so. Would we still get web browsers? How about the rest of the digital transformation?

One thing I do know for sure. LLMs would have been impossible.

3D printer beds have been getting bigger, but slicers don’t seem to account for curling as large prints cool. The problem is long linear runs on bottom infill and perimeters shrinking. I’ve been cutting my large parts into puzzle like shapes, but printing them fully assembled. This adds curved perimeters throughout the bottom layer, reducing the distance stress can travel before finding a seam to deform.

That said, a retro laptop this thick would look really nice in stained wood.

I love the case material. What is it? It looks like what they make the bulk post boxes out of here (if you ship a lot of material via post, they give you these boxes to put them in to/from the delivery centre), or corflute material (election candidates posters around here).

Stunning work! Astounding progress since its under 3 months old from PCB to this result.

Funnily enough I've been musing this past month would I better separate work if I had a limited Amiga A1200 PC for anything other than work! This would nicely fit.

Please do submit to HackaDay I'm sure they'd salivate over this and it's amazing when you have the creator in the comments. Even if just to explain no a 555 wouldn't quite achieve the same result. No not even a 556...

This would have been absolutely mind blowing back in the day!

> Yes, I know I'm crazy, but

Any time I see this phrase I know these are my people.

neat. not something i´d hanker for. i saw a 16 core z80 laptop years ago and i often think about it because it can multitask. https://hackaday.com/2019/12/10/laptop-like-its-1979-with-a-...

I love the super clunky retro esthetic!

Takes me back to a time when a laptop would encourage the cat to share a couch because of the amount of heat it emitted.

Amazingly quick as well. Pointless projects are so much better and more fun when they don't take forever!

Brilliant! I love it. Bonus points for using the eWoz monitor. It’s giving me the itch to build it.

Maybe this can achieve RYF certification.

What I really would love: modern (continously built) modern (less than 10 years old tech) devices ryf-cetified.

Awesome! Gives me mnt pocket reform vibes.

https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-pocket-reform

6502 based computers shouldn’t have a “dir” command. It’s “catalog” for detailed info or “cat” for the short one.

> 46K RAM

Not 64?

(Edit: I see part of the address space is reserved for ROM, but it still seems a bit wonky.)

Wow. It's fresh as a rose! Congratulations!

this post made me smile. why not!!! 6502 my first processor. <3

I love this! I’ve been working on a 6502 kernel. I have an arch trick to give the 6502 tons of memory so it can do a kind of Genera-like babashka lisp machine.

Good timing. My current weekend project is constructing something similar to the the first third of Ben Eater's 6502 design (last weekend was the clock module plus some eccentricities).

It occurred to me that given the 6502's predictable clock cycle timings it should be possible to create a realtime disassembler using e.g. an Arduino Mega 2560+character lcd display attached to the 6502's address/data/etc pins.

Of course, this would only be useful in single-stepping/very slow clock speeds. Still, I think it could be useful in learning how the 6502 works.

Is there relevant prior work? I'm struggling with my google fu.

Way cool! When can I buy one?

Complete madness! But, I love it.

And it mostly runs Microsoft software, too... Basic from 1977 :-P

It's commodore 64 ish. I like it