KaosEngineer
Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2018
- Messages
- 30
The first computer I built was a Commodore 8032, yes BUILT not bought fully assembled. Somehow an electronics store in my hometown had bare printed circuit boards and copies of the schematic so I bought a set. Soldered all the parts well socketed the IC's, saved money to buy all the chips, and a HAM operator in the area burned me a set of system ROMs - BASIC v4.0 I think it was and the chargen ROM.
However, I had no monitor or keyboard to test it all out. Luckily found a reseller in Tulsa, OK that had a case collecting dust in a store room for the 8032 with monitor, keyboard and power supply/transformer just missing my motherboard. Don't recall how much it was but convinced my parents (over 40 years ago now) to purchase it for me.
installed the motherboard plugged it in and all worked except for the video output displaying 3 scan lines for the correct character and the remaining lines for the next or prev character so A displayed the top 3 of 7 scan lines for the A but the bottom 4 scan lines were for either a B or @ don't recall which. Finally, the HAM operator that burned the EPROMs was convinced that he had a problem with his EPROM programmer after being told by others that ROMs he'd burned for them were bad too not a 14 year old kid telling him so. He burned me a new chargen ROM set -- fixed it. Not sure why just the chargen ROMs were bad as Commodore BASIC worked.
Purchased a Commodore B128 ages ago too. All was lost though in a house fire!
Never replaced them.
KaosEngineer
However, I had no monitor or keyboard to test it all out. Luckily found a reseller in Tulsa, OK that had a case collecting dust in a store room for the 8032 with monitor, keyboard and power supply/transformer just missing my motherboard. Don't recall how much it was but convinced my parents (over 40 years ago now) to purchase it for me.
installed the motherboard plugged it in and all worked except for the video output displaying 3 scan lines for the correct character and the remaining lines for the next or prev character so A displayed the top 3 of 7 scan lines for the A but the bottom 4 scan lines were for either a B or @ don't recall which. Finally, the HAM operator that burned the EPROMs was convinced that he had a problem with his EPROM programmer after being told by others that ROMs he'd burned for them were bad too not a 14 year old kid telling him so. He burned me a new chargen ROM set -- fixed it. Not sure why just the chargen ROMs were bad as Commodore BASIC worked.
Purchased a Commodore B128 ages ago too. All was lost though in a house fire!
Never replaced them.KaosEngineer