So I thought that the SmartyKit Apple 1 compatible had been mentioned here before, but a search doesn’t find it. The general idea seems to be that it’s a 6502-based system that you build on a breadboard to learn more about 8-bit-style computing.
What information there is about it (on their web site and GitHub repos) seems quite incomplete, and it seems to use a lot of parts compared to something like the RC6502 SBC or Amethyst. Here’s a sort of parts list and an image from their site:
Generator (IC1) • CPU 6502 (IC2) • Read/write signals decoder (IC3) • RAM (IC4) • ROM (IC5) • Memory addresses decoder (IC6 & IC7) • Keyboard controller (IC8) • Display port (IC9) • Ports addresses decoder (IC10 & IC11) • Video controller (IC12) • Keyboard port (IC13) • Keyboard BIT 7 port (IC14) • Display BIT 7 port (IC15)
I’m mentioning this now because they’re doing a webinar on April 11th, at 11:00 PST. I am not too likely to make that event, because it’s at 3 a.m. my time, but if anybody else wants to watch it and report back, I’d be very interested in hearing about what transpired.
Yes, I concur, @marcelk! It’s a challenge to make a business from this kind of offering, but good luck to them.
It’s also a challenge to solve the two problems which they’ve solved with microcontrollers: keyboard and video. Of course, both could be solved using 74 series chips, but that would be a particular tradeoff and would increase the parts count and cost. So, as with all projects, they make the tradeoffs they feel are right, and launch.
The Apple I is a nice choice of target machine: it’s a known quantity, it’s historically identifiable, it’s a usable specification, it’s simple. This choice should help with marketing.
It’s such a hazard, with projects of all sorts, to suffer feature-creep and end up over-ambitious. Looks like they’ve avoided that, now we have to see if they’ve picked a winning combination in their spec.
