It started all..

many many years ago, when I bought my first computer (ZX81) and started to learn assembler programing. Next step was to interface it with I/O like switches and relays which was naturally very interesting to build something other could not buy.

Later on I started to develop my own controller boards with the Z80 CPU, peripherals like parallel I/O, serial I/O and so on. Of course at those times it was very hard to make layouts and pcb’s because there where no computersoftware available to hobbyist’s like me. So routing was done manually and wirepaths where glued to the pcb before etching it.

If you tell this to some one of the younger hobbyist’s they would’nt believe.  :-)

In all those years until today (which means the last 15-20 years or so), I did a lot of programing on the job with various CPU’s,MCU’S, Apples (II), PC’s with DOS, Unix, Windows, while using Basic, Forth, Assembler, Pascal, C compilers or interpreters,  until I came up to use AVR’s to create my home projects. It was just fascinating how simple it was starting up with these MCU’s, just downloading the compiled code via ISP to it, without the need of any special programing hardware or eprom-burners and -erasers etc.