Imagesource: Image by catalyststuff on Freepik

Building your own DIY homebrew computer is, at the very least, a testament to two things: First: You know your stuff and understand the basics of computing technology. (Congrats! 💐) Second: You're retired and have the time required to get the thing into a state where it does something truly meaningful and does it reliably.

Is Sérgio Vieira aka @IntRegister retired? No clue. Maybe he hit the lottery, has rich parents, inherited wealth – I'm envious! 😜

The Homebrew that Sérgio is credited for is, unlike many other boxes on GitHub, quite special. At its heart, a Z80 CPU sets the pace, a self-built double buffer graphics system allows for rendering of backgrounds, sprites, and supports the dynamic swapping of tiles in real-time. Bam!

An ATMega644 then produces the video signal while the machine runs the code in its 128kB RAM – btw, only 56 of those 128 are actually usable for your own programs. A bit tight in there. 😵‍💫

A great project for those who... okay, let's skip that. So, if you happen to be among the privileged – enjoy, send a postcard.