A simple BIOS for my breadboard computer

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Adrien Friggeri, Aleksey Smolenchuk, Anthony Weems, anula, Ben, Ben Cochran, Ben Williams, Benjamin Elder, Benji Bromberg, Bill Cooksey, Binh Tran, Богдан Федоров, Bradley Stach, Brian Haug, Burt Humburg, Carl Fooks, Carsten Schwender, Chai, Chris Anders, Chris Lajoie, criis, Cristi Cobzarenco, Daniel Tang, Daniel Zimmer, Dave Walter, Dave Westwood, David Clark, David Cox, David Dawkins, David House, David Klassen, David Sastre Medina, David Turner, Dean Winger, Deep Kalra, DemoniacDeath, Dennis Henderson, Dilip Gowda, Dirk Sperling, Dmitry Guyvoronsky, Dustin Campbell, Dzevad Trumic, Emilio Mendoza, Eric Dynowski, Erik Broeders, Erik Granlund, Ethan Sifferman, Eugene Bulkin, Evan Serrano, Evan Thayer, Eveli László, Florian Bürgi, fxshlein, George Miroshnykov, ghostdunk, Glen Jarvis, Gregory Burns, GusGold, Hailey, Hovis Biddle, Ingo Eble, Isaac Parker, Jack McKinney, Jacob Ford, James Capuder, Jason DeStefano, Jason Grim, Jason Thorpe, JavaXP, Jaxon Ketterman, jemmons, Jeremy Cole, Jesse Miller, Jim Kelly, Jim Kelly, Jim Knowler, Joe Beda, Joe Pregracke, Joe Rork, Joel, Joey Murphy, John Henning, Jon Dugan, Jonn Miller, Josh Smith, Justin Williams, Kai Wells, Kefen, Ken Paul, Kennard Smith, Kenneth Christensen, Kristian Høy Horsberg, Kyle Kellogg, Lambda GPU Workstations, László Bácsi, Lithou, Marcos Fujisawa, Marcus Classon, Mariano Uvalle, Mark Day, Martin Noble, Mats Fredriksson, Matthew Clifford, melvin2001, Michael Cartwright, MICHAEL SLASS, Michael Tedder, Michael Timbrook, Michael Weitman, Miguel Ríos, Mike Coate, mikebad, Miles Macchiaroli, Muqeet Mujahid, Nate Welch, Nicholas Counts, Nicholas Moresco, Nick Chapman, Olivier HUBER, Örn Arnarson, Owen Arnett, Paul Heller, Paul Pluzhnikov, Phil Dennis, Philip Hofstetter, Ponytail Bob, ProgrammerDor, Ralph Irons, Randal Masutani, Randy True, raoulvp, real_huitz, ReJ aka Renaldas Zioma, Ric King, Richard Wagoner, Rick Hennigan, Rob Bruno, Robert Brown, Robert Diaz, Robey Pointer, Roland Munsil, Sagnik Bhattacharya, Sam Sturgis, Scott Gorlick, Scott Holmes, Sean Patrick O’Brien, Sergey Kruk, snc, SonOfSofaman, sorek.uk, Spencer Ruport, Stefan Nesinger, Stephen Kovalcik, Stephen Riley, Steve Jones, TheWebMachine, Thomas Eriksen, Tim Oriol, Tim Sanders, Tim Walkowski, Tom, Tom Smith, Trevor Johnston, tryonlinux, Tyler Latham, Vincent Bernat, Warren Miller, Wraithan McCarroll

[@Thetimpson]

I like to think Ben shoots these videos without a script, live, in one shot, having never approached the subject before.

[@brianmiller1077]

I thought the same for a while but back in the breadbaord days, those jumper wires were exactly the right length and pre-bent, so he did a ton of work ahead of time.

[@ELYESSS]

No he just look at the breadbord and cut and bend them perfectly the first try@@brianmiller1077

[@ellettdavis6066]

@brianmiller I believe that you can buy those breadboard wires pre-shaped.

[@darkred1686]

@@ellettdavis6066 Where?

[@pawciobiel]

😂

[@Postbus22]

Ben Eater is literally the Bob Ross of electronics

[@iXenox]

There are no bugs, only happy little accidents

[@skellious]

Happy little black red tree

[@Oli1974]

I have said that already years ago ;)

[@markgreco1962]

@@Oli1974I remember that comment

[@nagualdesign]

​@@Oli1974I literally said it.

[@lauriethefish2470]

Most impressive part of this is that running `make` worked on the first try.

[@gljames24]

This! I hate running make as it never works for me. Some library doesn't import properly and I have to manually install everything and I'm on a debian based distro. This is why I prefer cargo.

[@BrightBlueJim]

@@gljames24 There's always a way to get there with make: if you can figure out the command line to do compile or assemble a program, that's what you put in your Makefile. Then you can make it more flexible if you like. To me, make is the easiest way to get all of those compiler and linker switches right, and never have to mess with them again. The hardest part, really, is getting the linker to find any libraries, which is often different for every OS. But that's the OS's problem, not make's.

[@riripebby]

It was super likely to have not been the first try...

[@BrightBlueJim]

Absolutely not the first try. I don't know Ben, but from his videos I would guess that he records the process he goes through to get something running, THEN writes ths script to cover how to troubleshoot the pitfalls. But however he does it, he is certainly the best teacher I've seen for this subject.

[@binariez]

​@@BrightBlueJimbut doesn't he always show the errors and fix them? Yes it's most likely that he already knows how to fix the errors but he again simulates the fixing scenario

[@Napert]

"...unfortunately none of those are the computer that i built" what a problem to have

[@BrightBlueJim]

Well, it could be a problem, if the computer that you built isn't just a duplicate of a popular machine. This to me is what makes Ben a giant. He points out what the problem is, and then goes immediately to the solution. To me, this is much better than just showing how to set up a .cfg file for the linker. You get a sense of why the linker HAS .cfg files, and teaches you not to fear the "magic" files.

[@xard4spl]

A new Ben video is like Christmas for computer engineers. Please post more often!

[@guiorgy]

First of all, it IS Christmas for Orthodox Christians. Secondly, producing quality content requires a lot of time, research and effort. I'd rather get consistently great videos from him, and hope he gets enough rest in between.

[@TheMrR9]

@@guiorgy he just needs to try harder, bro

[@tomato6102]

@@guiorgy 🤓☝

[@xard4spl]

@@guiorgy my words were intended as encouragement and appreciation. I obviously do not demand anything from Ben :)

[@vitamins-and-iron]

@@guiorgyuMmMmM aCtUaLlY

[@handyreiter1310]

Sir you are really doing the Lord's work here. Where were you in the 90s?!

[@RobertoMariani]

Looks closer to an EE's work. Impressive nonetheless!

[@bobhillier921]

In the 80s?

[@handyreiter1310]

@@bobhillier921 80s also, but more 90s. PCs were already blackboxes to me. Add virtual memory, accessible C compilers instead of ASM, hardware abstraction and... boom, black magic.

[@KevinNHaw]

I was building 8086 embedded systems in the 90s. Different memory layouts, but I remember many battles with the linker. Honestly, this is one of the best introductions to linking I've ever seen. Great work, Ben!

[@handyreiter1310]

@@KevinNHaw 8086 embedded in the 90s, didn't know those exist at all!

[@PixelSchnitzel]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, your teaching style is PERFECT. By incrementally showing things that don't quite work and gradually approaching the correct answer, you leave us with an understanding of WHY things are the way they are. This is how new knowledge can be retained. Oh how I wish all my teachers in the past taught this way!!! THANK YOU, BEN!

[@JoeBurnett]

Your teaching method of incremental modification is really good! Thank you for sharing your gift of educating others with us using a subject we love!

[@MattRose30000]

I really appreciate how you're not just showing how it is done, but also all the errors that can occur in the process.

[@JTCF]

Wow, this is an amazing introduction to compilers AND linkers working together. I'm using linux as my daily driver OS and I was wondering how it all worked, and I am very thankful for your awesome explanations. Truly amazing!

[@mikefochtman7164]

So true, I remember using 'Blinker' back in the day and this video shows exactly what 'linker/loader' are all about.

[@axelanderson2030]

I've been writing and compiling c/c++ programs for years and never really understood object files. Now I know!

[@MrJake-bb8bs]

The only question I have why use a linker at all if you're going to include source files into another source files...

[@ast_rsk]

Wow! This was everything I was trying to dig into with CC65, but in a way I finally understand. Thank you so much!

[@HAGSLAB]

Same! I was struggling way too much with this trying to make a C64 cartridge with a custom program on it. Maybe I just looked in the wrong places in the docs, but this video explains the linking and mapping so cleanly.

[@r3sist197]

how is this comment 6 days old?

[@HAGSLAB]

@@r3sist197 Privately listed video as an early release for Patreon subscribers probably.

[@charlesdorval394]

@@r3sist197 Time travel ... *roll eyes*

[@genderender]

@@charlesdorval394 ben is working on the next project for this computer: time travel

[@tetraquark2402]

This is the clearest explanation I have seen on how the linker works with segments arrange where all the parts of your program go in ROM . Thank you

[@PrometheanConsulting]

Wow. Where was KZbin in the 70s when I was figuring all this stuff out in my room?! Ben does a great job with these videos and elegantly brings these concepts together. Thanks!

[@HarmonicaMustang]

I love the layout of these videos. It's very much how I deal with problems every day; work through errors as they come, adding information until it's happy, and balance it with what I learned from articles on the matter. Love this series, thank you for sharing your project with such detail and quality.

[@fjkldhakljf]

Do you immediately have a clear and concise solution to every problem you face in a way that supports a narrative and gives an opportunity to highlight a concept ? cool

[@HarmonicaMustang]

@fjkldhakljf Oh no, there's a lot of headscratching and cursing lol. I'm sure Ben also takes his time in working it all out, but he presents it in that programmatic way minus the thinking time.

[@ucantSQ]

I still remember the first video I watched of Ben programming an eeprom by hand. This man is a hero. I'm so glad he's still making videos.

[@1997CWR]

This guy is such a legend! Making such technical content so accessible is a true masterwork.

[@misterfelixguy11]

Following Ben's videos has given me great hands-on experience and including these projects on my resume actually helped me land an internship at HP (which turned into a full-time engineering role). Thanks for these wonderful videos and kits Ben!

[@danielvarga7365]

Awesome video, as always! Thank you and a happy New Year to you and to all fellow followers of your channel

[@IvanToshkov]

Such a nice new year surprise. Thank you for the great videos Ben!

[@SquidCoder]

I hope you sell these kits for a long time. I'd love to give to my future kids.

[@SquidCoder]

And also myself when I get a chance. They seriously make awesome Christmas gifts imo

[@ieatthighs]

don't have kids, it's a death sentence

[@fredinit]

Buy now, put in box, label box - avoid the rush later.

[@darkred1686]

If not, keep the BOMs Ben's posted to his website. It's not too difficult to piece these kits out yourself if you have to, as everything he uses is likely to be made far into the future. But yeah, if I ever adopt or have kids, I'd like to introduce them to electronics like this too.

[@havelsand]

Really great work and a profound explanation how compilers and linkers work together. Thank you Ben.

[@wynnberry9160]

I just bought the 6502 kit for Christmas and I couldn’t be happier to see this come out. Thanks Ben, fast shipping, great parts, and a joy to watch.

[@gambiarraoverflow]

A guy using Vim to code his own bios for his own 6502 breadboard computer. This has to be the biggest programming flex of all times.

[@hansvanderlinden6545]

Yet another stunning piece of art. Hope that I can slowly adapt to this way of working, in order to keep my project relocatable and linkable. Thanks.

[@m1geo]

Fantastic video, Ben! I am really excited to see where you go with this! Don't keep us waiting too long! 😍

[@DanSanderson]

Stellar pedagogical progression, as always! I have been recently confused about cc65 configuration and this cleared up a lot. Thank you!

[@AllenKll]

I love that you're making these videos. You have a great style of explaining the concepts. Back in the 80's when I was learning this stuff, this would have been absolute gold to have on a VHS tape. While not useful or accurate for today's computers, it's still a great basic education on how computers used to work. Thank you!

[@sjair6526]

Awesome video! Wish I completely understood everything. It’s good to see that you’re still adding to the 6502 computer. Happy new year!

[@denismilic1878]

This is a real NerdPorn for me, this video returned me to C64 assembler and Amiga C days.

[@lmaoroflcopter]

That is the clearest explanation of memory, assemblers and linkers I've ever seen. Your content is next level!

[@sergeantseven4240]

I absolutely appreciate the way you present this information to us.

[@syrslava705]

Wake up, Ben Eater just dropped an awesome

[@cojawfee]

Nice, I was itching for a new video. Glad we are getting into CC65 stuff.

[@ess4591]

Literally just mind-blowing

[@deyanmohamed]

THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO BEN

[@LuigiTrabacchin]

amazing work Ben!

[@kongolandwalker]

It is extremely interesting: following the process is much more understandable than when youtubers just show the results. Because when you follow the process each step feels more managable and thus the video feels motivating.

[@TheCreat1veSpark]

ME: Playing this video on our living room tv while having dinner with my parents, pretending to understand everything.

[@EinChris75]

Just mind blowing. Outstanding well made explanations. There are not many people around, making understanding basic computer knowledge so easy. Every IT student should watch those videos.

[@jrioublanc]

Really nice, clear and amazingly valuable. Thanks.

[@thecasualist1232]

I always wanted this. Thanks a lot for your knowledge, Sir.

[@Diamonddrake]

Another riveting Installment of breadboard computing! Thanks Ben!

[@GrandpasPlace]

Thank you for this one. Ive done IT for decades, started back with 8 bit computers. I learned basic, cobal, pascal, then moved over to scripting in perl and python. I never did understand C past some basics. Ive always wondered what the linker did and how the symbol table worked and this did a great job explaining it.

[@TheMeldanor]

Great video. One of the very few videos about programming AND hardware that is understandable.

[@No-jb6fy]

Your material is always outstanding.

[@BrightBlueJim]

Another big winner, Ben! At first I said, "meh, I don't need to know how to make a BIOS", but then I looked at some of the comments, and realized this is more of a "how to get started on software development for a new machine" video! Swiping Wozmon was one thing, but showing how to navigate between assembler, linker, and symbol table files, and setting up the configurations for the linker was really essential information that is rarely seen in such a concise form. I can't wait until you have a disk emulator for your machine, so the assembler and linker can be loaded from an SD card and run on the 6502 itself, rather than having to do the development stuff on a Windows machine and flashing EEPROMs.

[@keyem4504]

This is so incredibly great. Loving it. Can't wait for the next video.

[@StevenHokins]

Awesome video Ben! Thank you very much ❤

[@PankajKumar-zr3tv]

my man is back. Love to this guy!

[@alexandermaasland3494]

You made my day Ben, glad to see you are making new videos again!

[@angelomarcelino_]

I'm telling you man, this is going to end up running Doom

[@MAgy9ko]

Welcome back, Ben. Happy New Year.

[@architakumar2579]

Impossible. Sheer skill and talent right here. You sir are a treasure. 🥹

[@quirinschweigert7794]

I love these videos! Thank you for this

[@buysnoah]

I literally have 0 idea what I just watched and understand like none of it but for some reason I watched the whole thing and will be watching the follow up. Thumbs up 👍

[@GregStrike]

Great work Ben! Looking forward to the next one.

[@gregorymccoy6797]

Well done, Sir. Great video.

[@Kevin192291]

as always another AMAZING video from Ben!

[@phillupson8561]

So much fun to watch this evolve.

[@markcollard9326]

You are a great teacher, thank you.

[@timbersrcadventures]

Every time we think you died you post another video.

[@JulieanGalak]

I've been programming since 1987, and this is the first time I've understood what the linker does. Thank you!

[@VincentGroenewold]

My goodness this is easy to follow, thanks very much! Always wanted to dabble into assembly.

[@Endelin]

A new Ben Eater video? 2024 is going pretty well.

[@JakobWierzbowski]

Beautiful. Just beautiful 🙂

[@olivermcintosh8281]

This stuff is fantastic and reminds me of working directly on an Apple II in the early 80’s. Thanks Ben

[@AlguienMas555]

Always, amazing.

[@pbezunartea]

Amazing video, thank you!

[@BlazingImp77151]

I can't say i entirely understand, but I appreciate the teaching. can't wait to see what you do next!

[@MrAlFuture]

I can't wait for the next instalment!

[@petermuller608]

Great video, as always!

[@eternaldoorman5228]

What a professional job there! You make it all look so damned easy!

[@guntherjordan7177]

Wow, now as a retired man I simply see a way of education, I missed so badly in the 80's-90's! This is a description in 20 minutes for what I needed days or weeks to understand so long ago, when I started my migration from a kind of breadboard Z80 with less than 1KB of RAM to "THE REAL" C-64! As I never was much interested in the Basic language, I always appreciated the clarity and power of Assembler code. At first I had to literally assemble "in my mind" and the input was in pure HEX codes. So assemblers and linkers were completely new and difficult things to understand.

[@MrSilverad0]

Ben, I've got to say - I've learned more for your videos about microelectronics and low level coding than through my CS classes. Thank you for doing wonderful work

[@anypuppet]

Fantastic. Thank you.😊

[@bradhafichuk]

Thanks for taking me back to the 80s

[@MrThomashorst]

Worked about 10 years with compilers and linkers and never know whats really in the object-file and how the linker does it's magic ... until now ... thank you Ben ✨

[@jmm1233]

amazing work

[@iuhere]

thisi an awesome video great content ... good luck 👍 for future ones !

[@pelculator]

You keep amazing, Ben, looking forward to the BASIC integration video!

[@DustinWill]

Thank you, Ben.

[@aimah4390]

Amazing... you and your videos.. Respect

[@pawagnathom]

Ben you are the best. I've been "watching" you for some time and your job is at least to speak amazing. keep the good job. The content you are doing, making is teached on collage studies. keep the good work on. You have my support. Cheers and big love.

[@braselectron]

Thank you for your brilhant tutorials, I really enjoy every minute. As a Apple ][ early fan, since 1981, this subject is fascinating.

[@DW-indeed]

Always a good day when Ben posts a video 👍 It's almost like he knew I should stop procrastinating and do some more on my DIY Acorn Electron that he inspired 🤦‍♂️

[@arduino-tuto]

keep up the good work!

[@Ema_bar]

literally today i rewatched your 6502 series from ep1 to 7 lol

[@FritsvanDoorn]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[@tux1968]

It isn't necessary to create a separate memory region for wozman, just use an overwrite segment, like " WOZMON: load = ROM, start=$FF00 type = overwrite;"

[@celeron55]

You do get more controllable behavior with a separate memory region though as you'll avoid accidentally overwriting anything if something has a different size than you expect.

[@tux1968]

@@celeron55 Respectfully, this isn't really much of a concern. And creating many such memory regions for every segment, quickly becomes inflexible and error-prone.

[@petermuller608]

Thanks I was wondering about this. Do you happen to know ld65's behavior when the output overlaps?

[@georgwrede7715]

@@tux1968 I used to be a CS teacher. Most often you need to carefully decide what to include in a lecture. Too little slows things down, but too much has students confused and overwhelmed. These are big decisions and they are invisible to the students. -- Ben has tons of these decisions to make for every single episode, because there's so much more to tell at every point.

[@tux1968]

@@georgwrede7715 None of that changes the facts. The fact is, it's more appropriate to use an override segment than to manually carve up the memory regions. And I hope my comment might help someone who is learning. That fact doesn't diminish the great work Ben does, or the utility of his fabulous videos.

[@dirkkrohn1907]

Happy New Year Ben.

[@crimsonfart]

As someone who studied computer science for 3 years in university, I never quite managed to sort out in my head the connection between hardware and software. We had electronics, assembly and software engineering covered, but they were all disconnected, I felt I was missing a class or a professor to make a link between all those, to explain to a young man who knew nothing about electronics how it all works together, and how it could be tinkered with. You manage to do it with such simplicity, and your videos are a joy to watch. Thank you Ben! Anyone who has any interest in computers at any level should watch every video on this channel. This is pure gold.

[@danielcallegaribr]

Awesome! Can't wait for the next video!

[@ArduJimmy]

It's pretty awesome, bro 🎉🎉🎉

[@christianhansen3590]

Love these videos!

[@ak-yd6kc]

Awesome video.

[@bluesillybeard]

6502 is something I've wanted to get into for a while, but none of the tutorials did a good job of explaining what was actually going on. This video clears everything up lol. Although my experience with compilers and linkers has increased a lot since I last tried.

[@jonb3668]

Hes just outstanding

[@esra_erimez]

Happy and Healthy New Year to you Ben and all the Ben Eater viewers! Who's watching in 2024?

[@envis10n12]

Happy new year Ben! Always a good day when you post something. It feeds my brain in a way that fuels my unnecessary desire to make 6502 emulations in new and exciting ways.

[@garydunken7934]

BASIC.. uurrh, feeling nostalgic and brings back memories of late 80s for me!