- I regret giving away my OG XBox, controllers and half-dozen games about ten years ago. Although, it was to a family with several kids who weren't in a position to purchase any console, so hopefully it was loved in its second act.
- As a software guy vs EE, I was confused about how this works and skimming the paper didn't yield the simpler, high-level TLDR I needed to enlighten myself. I searched the paper's URL on Hacker News and found this paragraph in a comment that helped me.
> Programmmers usually think ROMs as data storage devices, but they are also the most rudimentary form of programmable logic, as they transform x-bit of address inputs into arbitrary y-bit data outputs, so they can implement arbitrary combinational logic. In fact, lookup tables are the heart of modern FPGAs. As a result, you may argue that this means any ROM-based design has ad-hoc FPGAs (especially when EEPROMs are so large after the 1980s, 64 K for 16-bit chips). But the use of Mask ROMs and PLAs in Control Units has always been a legitimate and standard way to design CPUs even back in the 70s, so I won't call it "cheating" (and using ROMs for ALUs or Control Unit wouldn't really be much different from using a pre-made 74181 or AMD Am2900 anyway).
- Edit Six Weeks Later: The tapes are preserved and released online! https://www.nsa.gov/helpful-links/nsa-foia/declassification-.../
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In addition to pushing forward on the FOIA approach, I'd suggest trying to interest whatever group the NSA has assigned with historical preservation. I'm sure they are understaffed and underfunded but at least they have an interest in preserving things like this, whereas the FOIA people's goal is to find grounds to deny requests as cheaply and quickly as possible.
I imagine there are NSA history buffs outside the agency and contacting them first to get their input on who and how to approach (or maybe even an introduction) would probably be better than a cold approach. Two things that may help:
* Make it easy for them by doing the legwork up front. Find a preservationist or museum with a working 1-inch VTR, ideally one of the "portable" ones (actually like a large suitcase vs a washing machine). It may be that removing the tape from the NSA facility makes it a much bigger ask (keeping in mind they don't know for sure what's on it yet). The closer you can make the initial proposition sound to "it just takes one of your people to get the tape for a couple hours to digitize it. We'll set it up but NOT be in the room for the playback, then NSA can decide what to do with it" the more likely success will be. (obviously, it'll probably be more complicated but once they're in...)
* Highlight that this is ONLY about preservation not release. Old magnetic tapes degrade with time. Accessing playback gear may not be possible in another decade. It's probably still savable this year but will soon be lost forever (create urgency with FOMO).
Don't even talk about release or FOIA, make it about some NSA history initiative that already has support. Ideally, they're working on a "Women in NSA" or "NSA and Early Computing" exhibit for next year. Just between us though, once you know that the video exists digitally, the grounds for FOIA denial is gone :-)
Good luck!
- It's been shipping for 3 years with over 1,000 sold so far. The current pre-orders are for the third production run.
- Rodrigo Copetti has just released another of his amazing hardware architecture deep dives, this time into SNK's legendary Neo Geo. This covers both the popular arcade machine platform on which 150 different titles were released 1991 to 2004 and the (very) high-end home game console which was based on the same design. Well worth a read and also available as an e-book download.
- I came across this impressive home brew graphics subsystem for C64 today. The goal seems to be pushing the boundaries of what would have been possible with period-correct, through-hole 74LS parts (no FPGA or ASIC) toward advanced arcade-level graphics hardware. Quite ambitious for a one-person hobby project and, as the video below shows, very successful!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLVZav7mVcI&t
Github: https://github.com/martinpiper/BombJack/blob/master/README.m...
- I love that they're teaching assembler in the context of a video game but choosing the Atari 2600 as the hardware just seems almost... abusive? :-)
I guess the upside is that any programmer who survives getting a 2600 to do a full game can carry that as badge of honor...
- I look at it as less is more. 128 bytes of ram. A simple instruction set. Simple sound. It is easier to focus on learning and being imaginative. Atari 8-bit and NES programming require going up a much steeper learning curve. More options and capabilities but more distractions and expectations of what you should achieve and do when learning.
- That is basically how it works.
For anyone interested in exploring this idea without having to go full on assembly warrior, give Batari Basic a try. It's actually quite well done and it exposes the limited resources of the VCS in an easy to understand way.
Your basic program is compiled down to 6502 machine language and it all runs at basically native speed.
I found it extremely productive. One can knock out a simple game concept in an hour.
And yes, the sharp limits really does boil down to less is more. You won't find yourself looking through tons of options and or making one of a very large number of possible choices either.
- Yes ! the vs code extension : Atari Dev Studio has batari basic and 7800basic available as well as full on assembly coding. What a great tool !!!!
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=chunkypi...
- Unfortunately, the article didn't address the #1 question on my mind. How closely interconnected were the Genesis and PC sides, did they share a bus?
A little searching and I found this forum thread where some Genesis hackers who have Teradrives assembled detailed info including high-res mobo photos as well as chip pinouts.
- To me, the Centurion minicomputer is more interesting than this PC clone. Strangely, the most interesting thing about the Centurion minicomputer is how uninteresting it is for an original computer system that wasn't a clone yet was on the market for ten years and had thousands of business users.
It just shows how in that era a computer company could be relatively successful selling a system that, from what I can tell, wasn't better, faster or cheaper than its competitors. It wasn't directly compatible with any other system, the OS was primitively bare bones and the software library was minimal at best. I can't find anything obviously innovative, elegant or even notable about its design or implementation. It wasn't even state of the art when first introduced and only fell further behind over the years.
It's unusual because it's pretty rare for an original, long-lived system from that era to be so uninteresting to me.
- The article references "The Amiga digitizer" but what it describes (a monochrome video camera + color filter wheel) fits the Digi-View digitizer, an Amiga peripheral made by NewTek.
- More
And if you can find some NSA folks they would be able to make calls inside the system to get the wheels greased much faster than some FOIA intern will.