2026 Retrocomputer Problem: Vectron65 Plus Places The Emphasis On Plus

[Nick Bild] evidently has a delicate spot for the 6502, provided that his Vectron65 Plus home computer project makes use of a minimum of certainly one of them, relying on the add-ons. You see, he hasn’t simply made a homebrew pc, he’s additionally produced a number of expansions. One of which, the VGA Plus Text Mode, has its personal 6502 co-processor. He’s additionally produced two variations of a VGA graphics card able to 640×480 output. We’re nonetheless not 100% positive what number of entries we’re going to depend [Nick]’s work as for the competition, for the reason that graphics playing cards can be utilized with absolutely anything, not simply the Vectron65, however we do know they’re sturdy contenders each one.

We covered the start of the Vectron65 project back in 2019, and it’s solely gotten extra sensible because it has moved off breadboard onto PCB, and into a brand new model because the 65 Plus with extra RAM and GPIO ports. Considering that the unique allow you to recreation in VR using an add-on we covered, we would must drop the “almost” from “almost sensible” when speaking in regards to the Plus. Especially when you think about the graphics — we coated first model of 7400-series based VGA graphics card, whereas the newer V2 differs principally in doubling the RAM and producing a extra secure output. The V2 VGA card can work in tandem with the Text Mode card to jot down 40-column textual content to the display with out utilizing up all of the 6502 CPU’s cycles, offloading them to the second 6502 on the cardboard with the assistance of a personality ROM. Hey, if Commodore might put a second 6502 in a disk drive, why not? You can take a look at the entire suite in motion within the demo video beneath. We admit to being notably tickled by the Hackaday Comment Generator he’s operating in BASIC.

If you’re fearful about competing with [Nick], don’t fear — the 2026 Retrocomputing contest has multiple categories. You nonetheless have a number of weeks to do one thing retro-modern, restomod an outdated machine, or simply do some old-school programming.