RC2014 Assembly at The National Museum of Computing
Lately, after starting to read the book 'CODE' by Charles Petzold, and learning more about computer architecture, I had become increasingly aware of the high levels of abstraction upon which my regular coding and web development stood. Consequently I was itching to learn more about low-level coding and how hardware was in the past. And thus, today I went to the RC2014 Assembly event at TNMOC. The RC2014 Assembly events are semi-annual community events where many RC2014 enthusiasts and builders come together to explore the diverse applications of the RC2014 modular Z80 computer kit. Here is how the day went:
What is the RC2014?
The RC2014 is a modern, modular Z80-based 8-bit computer kit drawing inspiration from foundational late 70s/early 80s home-built systems like the ZX81, UK101, S100, Superboard II, and Apple I. Its nominal specifications include 8K ROM, 32K RAM, a 7.3728MHz clock speed, and 115,200 baud serial communication. And it is renowned for its simplicity and expandability.
The Event & What I Learned.
In the room there were many stalls run by builders & traders. As I went around, I got to have some really interesting conversations with the builders. Particularly at one of the stalls I met Steve who was so kind to show me exactly how the computer worked and how to program it. He showed me how he could use assembly language to load values into registers, do basic calculations such as adding and subtracting, and how you can also attach more hardware such as LEDs with ports and program them with other additional commands such as OUT. Assembly language was something I had previously only studied and read about, but watching the assembly code written actually execute in front of me and seeing the LEDs light up felt so special. He even showed me how he could write the program in Hexadecimal with I found extremely impressive! Thank you so much Steve for teaching me all about the computer.
The feeling of seeing all these wonderful concepts that I had previously only studied in textbooks right in front of me, with each part separate, soldered and built by hand was enchanting! Seeing the different busses, seeing the processor, seeing the ports, the hardware, learning what an integrated circuit is, it was remarkable. Every hour there were 'lightning talks' where builders shared their project with everyone explaining what they did and what they discovered/learned. Throughout the stalls and lighnting talks I saw many interesting projects including:
- a thermal imaging display
- an oscilloscope
- etching/drawing display with controls made of pot noodles!
- a MIDI music composing program
- Visualisations of sorting algorithms
- many more interesting projects and products
