Yes, I still use the same hard disk platter as a drink coaster. But I need more ISA cards in my collection.


I have uploaded code samples for the W65C02SXB 6502 development board.

Currently, the repo includes a programmer application written in Rust to talk to the W65C02SXB serial port, and a "Hello World" program.

The program transmits the string "Hello World!!\n" to the 65c51n ACIA serial port at 115,200 baud, and also counts from 0 to 255 on Port A of the onboard PIA. If you attach pins 5 to 12 of the PIA header (J2) to some LEDs w/ current-limiting resistors, you can see the port counting up in action! _You need a 5V tolerant UART cable to read the serial port (or use a logic analyzer).

I'm especially proud of this because it's been a while since I've done 6502 programming/had an excuse to, and I was able to work around a hardware bug in the ACIA that renders the "transmit buffer is full" status bit useless. Specifically, I expect a user to connect the pin 10 of the ACIA header (J4) to pin 24 of the VIA header (J3). What this does is route the serial port baud rate generator clock (RXC) of the [ACIA to P6 of the VIA. P6 contains circuitry to count pulses on the clock line. If you count over (number of clocks per char10 chars) pulses after starting a serial transfer, you can time how long it takes to send a character independent of the system clock (8MHz here). In this case, I count 168, or 16 clocks per char 10chars * 1.05 tolerance.

This was not my idea at all. Credit goes to GaBuZoMeu on the 6502 forums.

You can get your own W65C02SXB here. It's definitely more expensive than basic 32-bit microcontroller eval board, but I still recommend getting it if you're nostalgic and/or just want to play w/ 6502.

My repo is here. To run, type:

cd hello; make PORT=COM* prog

You need a Rust compiler and WLA-DX installed.


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