Robotron Autopsy Learning About Hardware From Vintage Video Games
summary
Reverse engineers Robotron 2084 to expose exact hardware: a Motorola MC6809 CPU, 48KB memory + 12 ROMs, separate 6802 sound processor, tiny palette RAM and shift‑register video fed at 6 MHz, and a logic‑decoded watchdog whose reset data is 0x39. Reasoning shows why memory is three bytes wide and how palette tricks give fast color animation. Recreates the machine in HDL on an FPGA with real 6809; it runs and is playable but graphics slow under load because the emulated blitter steals cycles and isn’t cycle‑perfect.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Vintage hardware intro
- 1:13Robotron 2084 overview
- 3:18Circuit boards and chips
- 6:296809 processor & memory
- 10:02RAM and high-score storage
- 11:47Watchdog timer explained
- 15:22Watchdog timer logic
- 22:52Video system basics
- 26:02Color palette & pixels
- 29:55Cocktail cabinet tricks
- 33:28Soundboard & audio
- 35:57Williams Chip One
- 36:38FPGA recreation
- 39:06FPGA design basics
- 41:19Reverse engineering resources
- 46:25Q&A on vintage chips
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