hermeslegor: Metalab wires its Blinkenwall to run from Commodore 64, gives no word on the obligatory Tetris port (video)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Metalab wires its Blinkenwall to run from Commodore 64, gives no word on the obligatory Tetris port (video)

We've seen some ambitious Blinkenwalls in our time. Nearly all of the attention is unsurprisingly focused on the wall, however, and not on the often clever hardware and software behind it. Vienna's Metalab wants to shift the limelight by kicking it old school. Instead of the thoroughly modern Arduino and Fonera hotspot that normally light up Metalab's 45-block glass wall, the team's Blinken64 project swaps in a Commodore 64 with a cassette drive and the unusual Final Cartridge III feature extender. Getting lights to strobe requires dusting off more than just hardware -- all the animations have to be written in assembly-level MOS Technology 6510 code that even our nerdy parents might forget. The result you'll see in the video after the break is a far cry from the relatively easy, web-accessible hardware that normally powers such blinkenlight creations, but it's also a testament to how relevant classic technology can remain when it's in the right hands.

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Filed under: Desktops, Misc. Gadgets