Programming Help

[NotDeadPool2 34]

Hello. Is anybody familiar with 8086 assembly or perhaps even 68k or 6502 assembly? I know that list is sort of backwards as far as complexity goes, however, I will be beginning with 6502, which runs at the 1 to 2 mHz range for processing power and was the microprocessor used in the C64 computers. I'm new into programming, CPU'S, and processors and am starting off by learning C, Commodore BASIC, as well Racket and LUA. I'm also learning the basics with microelectronics as I learned about circuitry and schematics in 8th grade and want to learn more. I use Eclipse C and C++ IDE to have a stable environment to edit or create scripts inside of. I am familiar with the following IDE's: Visual Code Studio, Zero Brane, Notepad++, Sublime Text 3, and Eclipse (Primary). All of which are good script editors/writers with their own advantages and disadvantages. I'm using Programming Hub to obtain my certifications in the following: Fundamentals (Current W.I.P.), 8086 Assembly, Shell Script, Linux, and C programming language. Not to mention the programming part B series on coding in Coursera for DrRacket. I am not proud of this at all and just wanted to elaborate as to what I am doing exactly to list current goals, plans, and information as to how I am doing it or why. I'm wondering if this community has any interest in old school electronics and am also looking for additional resources to help me out to learn anything I have mentioned. What is some reliable information you know of and where can I find it? Do you have any recommendations, such as youtubers, website articles, or forums to learning any of these languages?

[ChrisRid 900]

This sounds awesome, it's such an amazing world to dive into with electronics and low-level programming! There's some bits I might be able to help out with and chat about:

 

3 hours ago, NotDeadPool2 said:

I will be beginning with 6502, which runs at the 1 to 2 mHz range for processing power and was the microprocessor used in the C64 computers. I'm new into programming, CPU'S, and processors and am starting off by learning C

If you want a great place to start out, I'd highly recommend taking a look at more simple chips like the ATMega328P (used in the Arduino Uno), or ATTiny85 (an 8-pin microcontroller with a surprising amount of features built-in. The great thing about these is that you can program them using the Arduino IDE which is free, using C as the language, and the chips are super cheap + very well documented with a ton of videos and tutorials online. Alternatively you could look into using the PIC range of microcontrollers if you prefer. Either way, it will be a very good and easy introduction and a great place to start - I still dable with these chips even to this day!

 

3 hours ago, NotDeadPool2 said:

Linux

Yes! Get Linux mate, you wont regret it. There are some really cool pieces of software for Linux which allow you to essentially take the raw data of any 'program' and convert it into assembly (a disassembler), the idea being to aid in reverse-engineering, but of course it's not easy but it will teach you a ton about assembly. Here's a good video on it if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh2RXE9BIN8&t=252s

 

3 hours ago, NotDeadPool2 said:

I'm wondering if this community has any interest in old school electronics and am also looking for additional resources to help me out to learn anything I have mentioned. What is some reliable information you know of and where can I find it?

Absolutely, I love tinkering with electronics and I think a few others do here too. There's a ton of resources out there, it depends what kind of thing you're after. For truly old-school electronics, there's archives online of old electronics magazines - and they are still just as useful and relevant today as they were in the 70's, for component-level circuits at least; I'd highly recommend them as they are free and really useful. Of course there's also Reddit groups, Facebook groups, etc. I find Reddit is a great place to ask questions when you get stuck during a project, one of the best resources honestly, as long as you show all of your working and have tried your best then people are generally keen to help you out.

I'd also highly recommend EasyEDA for circuit design, it's free and you can use it in your browser, plus you can then convert your circuit into a PCB and order them from China for like $5. Here's one I made recently for a quick project:

 

3 hours ago, NotDeadPool2 said:

Do you have any recommendations, such as youtubers, website articles, or forums to learning any of these languages?

Youtubers, yes! Here's just a few of my favourites but you'll find loads more:
- EEV Blog

- Great Scott

- Big Clive

- ElectroBOOM

- Look Mum No Computer

 

Give me a shout if you have any specific questions and I'd be happy to try and help you out mate, there's so much out there it's hard to know where to start sometimes

 

[NotDeadPool2 34]

Thanks for the advice!

I thought I'd share this with guys! I'll be posting updates for this project of building C128 from a fresh board! Maybe in a couple months or so.

https://www.tindie.com/products/griffinretro/c128-neo-pcb/