this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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I have programmed by looking up op codes in a table on a sheet of paper and entering the hex codes into an EPROM programmer.
Did this in university in the very first week, quite a few people dropped out after that ๐
Ah yes, the great filter
You are.... Old?
Fucking ancient. This was for a Z80 based system using discreet logic for addressing and IO, constructed on a wire-wrapped board.
Oh that's interesting. I started poking around with a Gameboy emulator guide implemented in Python that intended to emulate a Z80. Got any good resource recommendation in case I decide to pick this back up and inevitably get stuck?
i still have a z80 reference manual on here somewhere
If you want some modern day fun with this, try the Zachtronics programming games; TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O, and Exapunks.
Or, my personal favorite I only discovered somewhat recently, try Turing Complete. You start by designing all your logic gates from just a negate gate IIRC. You eventually build up an ALU and everything else you need and then create your own computer. Then you define your own assembly language and have to write programs in your assembly language that run on the computer you've designed to complete different tasks. It's a highly underrated game, although it takes a certain type of person to enjoy.
Turing Complete looks really interesting! How polished is it? Just looked it up and saw it was in early access
I would say it's very polished. It does everything you'd expect and has some nice QoL features. There was work on a big update that'd improve performance and things, but the last information about that was from Aug of last year as far as I can tell. That's not a big deal though. The game works fine without it.
Thanks! I'll try it out over 4th of July weekend!
Another interesting low-level interpreter/emulated system to look into for anyone else trying to get started with this type of thing is the CHIP-8! It's a pretty basic 8/16-bit instruction set (there are 35 opcodes, the instructions themselves are mostly simple) and there are tons of detailed guides on making one and writing roms for them.
Ah, memories. That was me on a Spectrum. It's all fun and games until you forget to save (to tape) and your code hangs the machine, losing everything.
Did the same in school on a Z80
When I was young, we didn't have hex codes, we only had 1 and 0s. One time we where all out of 1s, and I had to code a whole Database system with only 0s!
Same, and also for the C64 :-)
You're a god amongst men around these parts.