semi-homemade micro

[woodelf]

compoobah at valleyimplants.com wrote:

>All the talk about building a mini from TTL got me thinking about homebuild micros, and what one would look like if I decided to build one (been playing with my IMSAI, too, which probably accounts for some of it)
>
>     RISC would be out, due to difficulty of assembly coding, and 8086 seems a bit dull. Z-8000, TMS9900, and RCA1802 seem unavailable, and 6120 doesn't have many registers.
>
>     Looks like the best available ideas from an ease-of building and obtaining would be Z-80 (or variant), 6809, or 68000 (close to top in complexity, esp. if a front panel is wanted). 6502 could also be a possiblity.
>
>     I suppose either native IDE or another system serving as a storage server would be the way to go, the IDE could either connect to a old drive or a smallish CF card, and flash firmware would probably be best, or EEPROM. SRAM seems to be the way to go for smaller systems.
>
>     Just wondering what the thoughts of the list would be for specs of a "new" hobbyest micro.
>  
>
The biggest thing  I can think of  is you only have two sizes of  
computer today ... 16 bits or 32 bits of addressing.
You can only get the 16 machines easly and resonable source of a OS.  
The 68000 yes still works best with 64k addressing.
Oddly the only micocomputer chip I like ( other than the 6800/6809) is  
National Semiconductor's 16032 is another chip that you could never get.