I assembled and debugged one channel of my vector generator, and wrote some of the firmware to drive it. I have unfortunately NOT finished building the second channel, though I got <fingers separation=”10mm”>this</fingers> close.
Would you believe <fingers separation=”20mm”>this</fingers> close?
I’m going to try to blame my not having made more progress on the local electronics store being closed today, so I wasn’t able to get a 74HC04 I need (or any other 74HC inverting gate). However, that’s a flimsy excuse since I should have anticipated the need for it, and I haven’t completely finished wiring the second channel.
I’m going to consider it a qualified success anyhow. Analog electronics isn’t really my forte, but I was able to analyze the operation of the original Ciarcia vector generator (“Make Your Next Peripheral a Real Eye Opener”, BYTE, November 1976, based on Hal Chamberlin’s earlier design published in the first three issues of The Computer Hobbyist, 1974-1975) to the point where I understand how it works, and was able to update the design in simple ways for construction with more modern ICs. I did get one channel (half of a minimum vector generator) built and debugged, and test firmware written.
I also got Dave Kruglinski’s 8080 Space War game from the October 1977 BYTE to assemble with a cross-assembler. As originally written, it used a point-plot display, rather than vector. I intended to modify it to talk to the vector generator but have not yet done that.
Documentation:
- Schematic
- Firmware source code (github repository)
- Photos
- Dave Kruglinski’s Space War source code (github repository)
I’d like to thank Richard Ottosen, Scot Anderson, and John Doran for advice and support on this project.