Category: Retro Computing

Understanding Unicode: A Deep Dive into Universal Text Encoding

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
Understanding Unicode: A Deep Dive into Universal Text Encoding

Unicode is a universal encoding standard designed to support every language and symbol in use today. This article provides an in-depth look into how Unicode works in application development, exploring the challenges of string comparison, normalization, and the multiple ways that the same visual character can be represented. Learn how to handle Unicode strings in Python, JavaScript, and C, and discover how normalization can resolve issues when comparing visually identical characters.

Continue Reading “Understanding Unicode: A Deep Dive into Universal Text Encoding” →

Going Nostalgic With Text Adventures And QB64!

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:

Embark on an exciting journey into the world of text adventure game development with this comprehensive guide to creating your own game in BASIC. Explore the intricacies of game design, programming techniques, and interactive storytelling as you learn to craft immersive experiences for players.

Continue Reading “Going Nostalgic With Text Adventures And QB64!” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 9

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 9 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Tooling for the Tiny-T When we completed the console, last installment, I had said I was unsure what I would cover next. I’m really wanting to begin implementing our audio device, but I felt that adding a GUI for the Tiny-T system was a target much more achievable in the limited time I had. However,

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 9” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 8

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Adding a Crude Console Last time, we left off with a working computer system using the Tiny-T processor. I told you that we would add a very crude terminal to the system this time. The terminal I’ll present today is barely a terminal. It won’t have any special functions, text scrolling, or any other features

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 8” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 7

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Today’s Project NOTICE: Today’s Code will only work under Python 3.10 and later. In this episode, we will build a new system using a processor with Von Neumann Architecture. We will also be splitting our system into various files and classes to organize our system better. The Memory will no longer be part of the

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 7” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 6

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Last issue we built a simple assembler for our TIny-P processor emulator. In this installment, we will build a loader. But what is a loader? Loaders are small programs that load other programs into system memory and prepare them for execution. Most loaders are part of an Operating System however, in the embedded world, there

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 6” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 5

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Tooling Hardware and software developers are tool makers by trade. Just like a machinist, software developers often need to develop their own tools for the job at hand. Sometimes these tools are simple scripts to automate a boring, or complicated task, or perhaps, a tool to fill a yet unfilled niche. Whatever the reason, tool

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 5” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 4

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 4 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Programming the Tiny-P Programmers are often confused by the terms machine language and assembly language. Many developers consider these two terms interchangeable. But in fact, they mean very different things. If you go back to the Tiny-P Opcode table presented in part-3 of this series, you can see how the various machine code values are

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 4” →

Building Machines In Code – Part 3

Posted By: R. MorganPosted On:
This entry is part 3 of 9 in the series Building Machines in Code

Creating the Tiny-P CPU In this post, we will finally write some code. I promise! We’ll be using Python here as one of the most popular languages these days according to the Tiobe index, narrowly beating out C. So, in the interest of reaching as many people as possible I settled on Python for this

Continue Reading “Building Machines In Code – Part 3” →