https://natashenka.ca/tamagotchi-friends-code-dump/#more-281
https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2013/Fahrplan/system...
I've been hacking on an Apple ][ over the past few weeks. It runs on a 6502 processor. It's kind of mind-blowing to know that the thing used to run an entire PC was later used for pocket toys like the Tamagotchi a handful of years later. The speed at which technology has improved will never cease to amaze me.
Perhaps ironically, all of the microprocessors of the early and mid 1970s, the 6502 included, were intended as embedded controllers. Systems where you couldn't justify the expense of a "real" computer, and didn't want to design full custom electronics. Like for an engine control unit, or, indeed, a video game. (Although not for handheld battery-powered units originally, only the later CMOS revisions had low enough power draw for that to be practical.)
That hobbyists would make single-board computers with about the capability of an early 1960s minicomputer using chips like the 6502 or 8080 - and then find those machines useful enough to create a large market - was quite a surprise, and an upset, to both the semiconductor and computer manufacturing companies. MOS was one of the first to recognize that market, and sell direct via mail order. The easy availability of samples, and low cost in small quantities, was one of the reasons for the 6502's success against its bigger competitors. Motorola, Intel, TI, etc. at the time were marketing to the engineers at companies that made car engines, CNC machines, telephone exchanges, etc.
All this is via a Hackaday article. [3]
2. https://spritesmods.com/?art=tamasingularity
3. https://hackaday.com/2015/11/24/building-the-infinite-matrix...
https://filestore.fortinet.com/fortiguard/research/glucose-b...
"All those cool kids going out, going to clubs, they just haven't discovered reverse engineering yet"
> Let's consider your proposed 8086 done in a 14 nm process. Let's say we do it in CMOS, and maybe even throw in a few extra features, and it takes 100,000 transistors. The die would be very tiny, so unbelievably tiny. You could fit three thousand of them, with room to spare, in a single square millimetre, which is an area likely smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
The 8051 is so commonly embedded deep in other ICs that it has very likely been produced on much smaller nodes.
I watched this one in 2012, although not live. There is a follow-up talk she gave one or two years later, "Many more Tamagotchis were harmed in the making of this presentation" that is equally enjoyable.
The AI bots in the future will not like our callous disregard for the poor tamagochis
