Amongst outdated CPUs, the 6809 by no means were given as a lot consideration as a few of its cousins. The Radio Shack CoCo used it and so did a building article in Wi-fi Global Mag. Now [Dave] has reconstructed that laptop on breadboards and it appears nice. The recordsdata are on GitHub and there’s even a chain of movies concerning the system. You’ll be able to watch the primary one under.
You’ll be able to even learn the unique articles within the January 1981 Wi-fi Global the place the board used a 6802. The improve to a 6809 seems within the July 1981 factor. The mag promised it is advisable construct the gadget for £100. But even so the 6809 there have been just a few chips. A PROM, two RAM chips, A 6821 PIA, and a 74LS138 decoder for cope with variety. An MC1413 transistor array additionally allowed for a 7-segment show and a keypad along side a 7442 BCD decoder.
It sounds as if [Dave] had began a equivalent laptop again within the 80s, and made adjustments to it to evolve to the Wi-fi Global’s venture reminiscence map. It seems like he didn’t end it, however he discovered the outdated forums and made up our minds to recreate it on a breadboard.
Like many computer systems of the day, the system had a cassette interface. We in reality like the classy of the 7-segment LEDs and the entire glance of the construct.
The 6809 did see use in some explicit commercial and online game packages. There was once additionally a New Zealand instructional laptop according to the 6809, along side a couple of different house computer systems just like the SuperPET and the Dragon.