…i was a hell of an engineer. Classical words from the movie Contact. A movie I have probably watched a hundred times. Since childhood space, rockets and technology have been a passion of mine. That and fishing….

No wonder I ended up in the IT/computer business as an architect, but it was only a few years ago I had to dust of some basic electronic knowledge from school some thirty years ago to solve a problem with my pool heating system. While messing with this, suddenly the penny dropped that never dropped at school: How the electronics actually works.

Fast forward, and I have found that I almost tear things apart, toasters to car electronics just to understand and enhance things. This lead to a idea to build a computer from scratch. As always, internet is a fantastic source, and if you search youtube, you will find alot of stuff showing how to build a computer from scratch. Mainly 8-bit, but of course 16-bit and modern stuff as well

One thing that struck me was that alot was about reproducing the 8/16-bit era with time period parts. This is of course nice, but my view is different. What if the techology of today was available in the days of MOS 6502, Motorola 6989/680×0 and Intel 8086?

This to me showed an opportunity to learn multiple stuff. Old school CPUs, modern FPGAs, level conversions between 3.3 and 5v, digital graphics and so on. Hence an evil plan formed in my head, and it all starts with an Motorola 68010 and a bucket of breadboards, and I really mean a bucket….. This have showed to be a journey down a rabbithole…..