Ask HN: How can I break into retro computers?

• simh

  39 1,617 8.9 C

  The Computer History Simulation Project

  

The least expensive way to try things out is, of course, via emulation, and there's very active work and archiving being done for early 8-bit microcomputers such as Apple II, Commodore 64, TRS-80 and Atari machines. Apple emulators, such as Virtual ][ (http://virtualii.com) and AppleWin (https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin) at least, let you emulate not only the Apple II but CP/M as well. There's old hardware out there as well, with all the problems associated with it.

For other old systems, such as the PDPs, Vaxen and others, there's simh (http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ and https://github.com/simh/simh).

• AppleWin

  16 669 8.4 C

  Apple II emulator for Windows

  

The least expensive way to try things out is, of course, via emulation, and there's very active work and archiving being done for early 8-bit microcomputers such as Apple II, Commodore 64, TRS-80 and Atari machines. Apple emulators, such as Virtual ][ (http://virtualii.com) and AppleWin (https://github.com/AppleWin/AppleWin) at least, let you emulate not only the Apple II but CP/M as well. There's old hardware out there as well, with all the problems associated with it.

For other old systems, such as the PDPs, Vaxen and others, there's simh (http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ and https://github.com/simh/simh).

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com featured

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• Arduino

  139 14,019 0.0 Java

  Arduino IDE 1.x (by arduino)

  

If you want to work in a simulation, the Nand to Tetris course, in which you build a computer out of single NAND logic gates in a stack of layers is the way to go, as others have said. [1]

If you want to work with real things in your hands, the cheap and easy way these days is to get an Arduino[2] (5 Volt I/O, and a bit slower) or Raspberry Pi Pico (3.3 Volt I/O, and quicker) and build something.

The Raspberry Pi Pico is a machine that has 2 cores, a lot of IO and a hugely powerful I/O engine called the PIO, which is fast enough to output video (VGA or DVI/HDMI) or almost anything else you need done.

[1] - https://www.nand2tetris.org/

[2] - https://www.arduino.cc/

[3] - https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/

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