Micro Chroma 68 Revisited

About six years ago, on this blog I documented the build of an original Motorola Micro Chroma 68 (aka "uchroma68") kit. The "kit" was intended as an evaluation platform for the 6847 VDG and consisted of a PCB and the major ICs like the 6808 CPU, 6847 VDG, etc. (I had to acquire the various other bits, mosty passive components.) I enjoyed the build process and even hoped to target the machine for some retro games development. Nevertheless, the overall lack of available hardware made this platform seem too niche to be a priority for development. After I wrote a simple program to demonstrate the machine working, I essentially set aside the uhroma68 and largely ignored it.

Virtual Reality

Of course, I never forgot about the uchroma68. Recently in my Internet wanderings, I came across the news that MAME had added uchroma68 support:

This bit of news was exciting enough to inspire me to install the proper ROM images and update my MAME installation in order to try out the emulation. Having done so, I decided to pursue how to get my old example program running on the emulator:

Whet Your Appetite

Getting this far was fun and not without some challenges. I'll save those details for the next post! Plus, I have a text-based animation that I originally ported from a VZ-200 C program to assembly language for the MC-10 which I had always suspected would be easy to get on the uchroma68. That might provide a better taste of the uchroma68 platform and how it is similar to the MC-10.

Beyond that, I have another porting project in the works that involves a headstart provided by a very clever partner. I think you will enjoy that one, and it might bring us the best game to come to the uchroma68 so far. Intrigued? Well...stay tuned!