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I bought this book the other day (I had read a brief excerpt long ago) and it is really fantastic.
I love a retrospective on how technologies came together and this is written by a very good writer who brings the subject to life. It's only $1.99 on kindle so a great value.
The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution, T.R. Reid, eBook - Amazon.com[^]
It explains the main challenge to circuit building even after transistors were invented:
from the book: “For some time now,” wrote J. A. Morton, a vice president of Bell Labs, in an article celebrating the tenth anniversary of the transistor, “electronic man has known how ‘in principle’ to extend greatly his visual, tactile, and mental abilities through the digital transmission and processing of all kinds of information. However, all these functions suffer from what has been called ‘the tyranny of numbers.’
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INteresting. Why Z80? Do you have experience with it from the past? Just curious.
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Why not? It's a damn good little processor, and very flexible.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Why not?
Only reason I can think of is that it may be difficult to program, right? Need equipment that is a bit more expensive maybe? Not sure.
And by difficult to program, I mean more difficult than newer chips like ATMega line (think Arduino), etc.
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No the board runs CP/M and you can code in Assembler, Basic and I think Forth.
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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Mike Hankey wrote: No the board runs CP/M and you can code in Assembler, Basic and I think Forth
Very interesting.
What is the hardware programmer like? Is it expensive? Can you (did you) build one yourself? Is it just a serial interface? Is there a hardware programmer with USB interface?
Millions of questions here. 
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Here's the Hackaday link to the project Z80-MBC2: 4ICs homemade Z80 computer | Hackaday.io[^].
Quote: The MCU Atmega32A is used as universal I/O subsystem, as Eeprom, and as reset and 4/8MHz clock generator for the Z80 CPU.
Inside the Atmega32A it is flashed an Arduino bootloader taken from here, and it is possible to use the Board Manager of the Arduino IDE to "import" it.
raddevus wrote: Can you (did you) build one yourself?
I bought the board and am soldering components, a lot of the are on order so it will be a while before I can update.
raddevus wrote: Is it just a serial interface?
There is a community that offers other boards for this chip/board but I'm at an early stage so if I can get it running on serial I'll be happy and then go from there.
raddevus wrote: Is there a hardware programmer with USB interface?
I have a hardware programmer to program the ATMega32A, I work with Atmel devices a lot. I use an USBTiny programmer but clones are very cheap on Fleabay. USBTiny USBtinyISP AVR ISP programmer for Arduino bootloader Meag2560 uno r3 711331264374 | eBay[^]
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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If you really need it, and can find an old 8" floppy drive somewhere, I can hook you up with a PL/I compiler for CP/M.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Thanks, appreciate it I'll keep that in mind!
It's been 6 months since I joined the gym and there's been no progress. I'm going there tomorrow in person to find out what's really going on!
JaxCoder.com
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Worked with it some when I first started computing, back in the dark ages.
I loved programming them back then and thought it would be fun to do some assembly and maybe even (shudder) some basic.
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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I'm more a 6502 type, the Z80 powered the Sinclair line of home PC's I was more a Commodore type...
Played with 6502 assembler back in college. Went from there to PIC...
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Got the Commodore in early 80s, loved that machine. Wrote a sprite editor in assembler.
Had a lot of problems with the tape drive, could never get it to work reliably.
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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I guessed you would be a US native, this side O' the pond you were either a Sinclair or a Commodore they had big battle for the bedrooms. I went '64 as most of friends had one. The tape drive was an art form all it's own 
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Thanks for the recommendation! I bought and finished the ebook. I didn't know Bob Noyce of Intel, together with Jack Kilby, was the integrated circuit inventor.
I was also from electronics school. All my classmates were reluctant in it because their grades did not meet the cutoff points of their choice course. I enrolled in electronics because I wanted to be an inventor like Thomas Edison. That was before I knew of his bad reputation. I was not good on hands-on activities like soldering and wiring, so I transitioned to a software development job in the end.
Good that George Boole and Claude Shannon are mentioned. It makes me want to learn boolean algebra and information theory.
I was the one who gave you a 5 for this recommendation.
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Shao Voon Wong wrote: Thanks for the recommendation! I bought and finished the ebook.
Glad you enjoyed the book. I am really enjoying the book too -- almost done.
Shao Voon Wong wrote: I was not good on hands-on activities like soldering and wiring, so I transitioned to a software development job in the end.
I'm not great at it either but I really like working on electronics projects for something different (than software).
Shao Voon Wong wrote: Good that George Boole and Claude Shannon are mentioned. It makes me want to learn boolean algebra and information theory.
I'm like that too. I read about something and an author makes it sound interesting and off I go to read about the other thing.
There's a really great (recent) book on Claude Shannon: A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman, eBook - Amazon.com[^]
It's another really well-written and interesting book.
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Clickety[^]
Any bullets? Fortunately I got only few.
Hellboy - I was one more random fan expected to see Hellboy 3. It didn't happen. But instead got this 
Glass - Split was good. It increased unbreakable expectations & forced me to watch this. Disappointed
Rambo: Last Blood - This one actually expected bullet. It was only available movie at that showtime during our unplanned visit to nearby mall. I liked the previous movie(Rambo) for action sequences.
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I take it Cats was a total disaster?
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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CGI alone was turn-off (from trailer)
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Yeah it didn't look very appealing. Really like Judy Dench (sp.) though.
Did a little mechanic work today.
Put a rear end in a recliner!
JaxCoder.com
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thatraja wrote: CGI alone was turn-off (from trailer)
Exactly. Very creepy. 
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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I've got the feline that you're purrfectly right on that one! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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It's rigged.
The "Worst Actor" class should just be one name, repeated a dozen times:
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
And he shouldn't even win that.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Mr. Cage survived being shot down in a prisoner transport plane, and then survived a terrorist organization on, "The Rock." Give the man a break; he's had it rough. 
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They should just give him a lifetime achievement award and move on.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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