Making a potato livecam with the Commodore 128 VDC and ComputerEyes
Another great post from Cameron Kaiser up on his Old Vintage Computing Research blog. This super thorough post details a retro computing project that used ComputerEyes and the Commodore 128 VDC.
If we’re going to make the little old 8-bit MOS 6502 into Skynet — because we already know what the Terminator T-800 CPU is — then it’s gonna need to see. How can it exterminate the last remnants of humanity without vision?
And we’ll use something period-correct, too. While our favourite Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 was busy stalking Sarah Connor in 1984, the product it might have (slowly) viewed the world with was already on the market: the Digital Vision ComputerEyes. Check out the little beige camera perched on a stack of disk boxes, attentively surveilling the room at just a few, uh, seconds per frame as displayed on the monitor. Plug in a composite video source, connect it up to your Apple II, Commodore 64 or (in 1985) Atari 8-bit, and wait about six or seven seconds to identify targets — or almost fifty for the highest quality. If Skynet had chosen this option we might never have had Judgment Day.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: A New Arduino MicroPython Package Manager, How-Tos and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey