Neo6502 Open Source Hardware Retro Computer NeoBasic gets in shape for Game development and more!

Neo6502 the EUR 30 W65C02 based Open Source Hardware modern Retro Computer with HDMI, USB Keyboard interface got it’s own BASIC language made by Paul Robson – the man behind a lot of 6502 projects on the net!

For a long time Neo6502 users could only play Apple ][ and Oric-Atoms games running in emulation mode, but the original NeoBasic written by Paul Robson specially for Neo6502 becomes more and more useful with every day.

Paul Robson not only have excellent ideas, but also it quite well organized and documents well what he is doing. You can check the documentation for the BASIC language , the Neo6502 API, Memory Map, etc. something which is mostly skipped in other projects as being “boring stuff”.

Although W65C02 in Neo6502 runs on only humble 6.25 Mhz this brief comparison show that the “magic” Paul Robson does to offload 6502 with activities where the processor is not good at to RP2040 gives great results. For instance Multiplication, Division, Float Point Arithmetic, Moving Sprites, loading graphics is all delegated to RP2040. The major advantage for Neo6502 architecture toward the others is that all the RAM is inside RP2040 and the SD-CARD/USB Flash drives are also directly accessible by RP2040, so 6502 only have to “give commands” to RP2040 and not move any data to it. This makes the Neo6502 very efficient.

Here is comparison of Neo6502 and some other Retro Computers:

As you can see Neo6502 at 6.25Mhz is right behind Acorn A3010 (ARM250@12Mhz) and AgonLight (Z80@18.434Mhz) outperforming CommanderX16 which runs on 8Mhz and have FPGA co-processor.

Compared to the old Retro Machines from the ’80s like Acorn BBC B, Commodore 64 and even HP with 68000@8Mhz Neo6502 just outperform them x10-20 times!

To see how efficient NeoBasic has become just see the Galaxians written in NeoBASIC in just 134 Lines of code:

Comparing new 6502 machine with Commander X16 is unavoidable as this is probably most popular 6502 project on the net. Here is LINE DRAW BASIC demo made on Commander X16 and on Neo6502:

If you want to join the development you can join the Neo6502 Discord developer’s chat server

OpenFest 2023 – Soldering workshop and Retro computer gaming

Day 1 at OpenFest we had the traditional Soldering workshop. We do these since 2012 and everyone already know about them, so many people were waiting with anticipation to come and solder their boards.

There were many new people though – about 80% of all people who participated soldered for very first time!

Sometimes a little help from mom and dad was necessary:

Holding the small SMT components with big nails is challenge!

We were pleased to see that girls also like to learn how to solder:

Day2 was for retro gaming, we though to make contest, but once the small kids sat and start playing nobody could possible move them away 🙂 so we just left them to have fun.

It was very pleasant to see that the new kids which are spoiled with their phones, tablets and fancy graphics still find quite interesting the games we play when we were on their ages even with humble graphics of 280×191 pixels 16 colors 🙂

Moon patrol definitely was one of their favorites.

Neo6502 now can emulate Apple ][ and Oric Atmos

Neo6502 modern retro computer software development got nice push by Veselin Sladkov who successfully made Apple ][ and Oric Atmos emulators running on it.

This will unleash the other developments too as some of the developers were struggle at USB keyboard integration together with picoDVI which is solved in the emulators code.

The Veselin work is at Github.

To compile you will have to follow the simple instructions in the readme and also need Apple and Oric ROMs and Disks, these are big binary files and not good to stay at GitHub so we keep them on our ftp

The already compiled uf2 images with some games are also on the ftp. LodeRunner, Mario Bross, Neptune, Moon Patrol, Karateka, CrossFire are just few to name.

Neo6502 firmware update! Neo6502 prototypes are on the web for developers!

Neo6502 Firmware development update. Paul Robson does amazing work, and on top of his super Basic he added Apple ][ compatible mode. How cool is this? if you type “][” in the prompt you go to Apple ][ firmware and you can run all the Apple ][ old code:

This proves how flexible Neo6502 is! with proper setup it will mimic any old 6502 technology.

you can play in the emulator here:

http://www.robsons.org.uk/neo6502/neo.html

Rien Matthijsse also have progress on his Neo6502 firmware and tease us with 320×240 256 color graphics and sound add to the MSBASIC he is working on:

The project is on GigHub and you can follow the progress there:

https://github.com/marobi/Pico-6502-V3

As you see Neo6502 gives a lot of opportunities, having all peripherals software defined you can imitate old technology or even create your own which do not exist!

We want more developers to join and experiment, so we decided to put Neo6502 on web for sale.

We have build limited quantity of prototypes. Note that this is not final product, it may have changes in future. This developer edition is without complete software and is intended to people who can develop firmware for 6502 and RP2040.