Break Into Program - L Break Into Program, 0:1

This blog started off as my homage to the humble Sinclair Spectrum, a computer that inspired a generation of programmers, and launched a thousand careers. It is a computer born of the 80s, which lives on in the hearts and minds of hundreds of enthusiasts today, with emulators aplenty running on systems as diverse as mobile phones and PCs, and new hardware being built using current technology and *that* rubber keyboard.

It has now expanded to include all manner of retro-gaming technology with guides on programming in assembly language including libraries of useful software routines for the Spectrum and Spectrum Next, helpful tips on diagnosing problems with retro-computers from Acorns to ZX81s, and even a series on building a computer from scratch on breadboards.

You can usually find me over on BlueSky, less often these days on Twitter, and rarely on Mastodon, and I post occasional videos on my YouTube channel. My project files are over on GitHub, including ZX Spectrum and Next assembly language routines, the official AGON firmware, Pico-mposite, BBC BASIC for Z80 ported to a number of platforms, and build files for my BSX Z80 Homebrew computer.

And finally, I have a Ko-Fi account if you like what I’m doing and fancy making a small donation for the cause.

Pico-mposite Colour

My first project on the Pico was the Pico-mposite, a breadboard circuit and application that demonstrated how to generate a black and white composite video signal in software using the Pico’s PIO cores and DMA and a resistor ladder as a digital to analogue convertor. The project went through a couple of iterations; from a hacked together demo to something that was a bit more usable and, more importantly, was ready, at least in principle …

Retro Computer Festival 2023

The Retro Computer Festival is held annually at The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge and this year I managed to secure a table as an exhibitor. How I got involved Long story short, I contacted Tony Jewell, the organiser, who said that there was no room at the inn, so I left it at that. A week or so later, Mack Wharton, another exhibitor, contacted me to say that he wouldn’t mind sharing a …

Sorry about the disruption

In case you are wondering what’s been going on over the last few days on here, I’ve been having some issues with the site. Long story short, I had not checked it for a couple of weeks, and was alerted by a couple of followers on social media that the site was either not available, or displaying adverts. It looked like it had been hacked to inject adverts. I spent a couple of nights attempting …