techav 2025 Recap:
I had quite a year! I worked on some great projects and accomplished far more than I ever could have imagined.
Blog Stats
50 original posts & 6 reblogged posts
18 photo dump posts
11 Wrap030 project updates
10 PikaPC project updates
Over 2000 notes on original posts
I've never been one for regular updates, but I am quite proud of the fact that I managed to publish new posts 48 out of 52 weeks.
Milestones & Accomplishments
I reached the 10th anniversary of my first homebrew computer.
I finally started using git properly for personal projects.
I made some major progress on Wrap030, my 68030 homebrew computer:
Recovered from a disaster that burned up several chips including a CPU
Built an 8-port serial card
Added a programmable timer interrupt
Moved from SRAM to DRAM
Added disk bootloader to ROM
Updated MultiBASIC, my minimal multi-user operating system kernel to use pre-emptive multitasking and hardware memory protection, and to add disk access
I made it surprisingly far into running the latest release of the NetBSD operating system on Wrap030, making it as far as booting into a single-user root shell.
I exhibited and was on staff for VCF Southwest, helping with graphic design for marketing, badges, & t-shirts, and with running the show.
I started PikaPC, my new PowerPC homebrew computer:
Hand-wired the main board and got the initial hardware running
Got PPCForth running and ported an integer Mandelbrot renderer to Forth
Added a PS/2 keyboard & mouse interface
Wired in an S3 ViRGE video chip and got as far as initializing VGA text mode
And of course in the background are all the every-day life events that don't really fit the topic of this blog, like replacing all of the drives in my home server, remodeling my laundry room, (mostly) recovering from a major depressive episode, completing over 50 programming projects for my day job, listening to over a month of music (mostly metal), etc. I guess I've been busy.
Obviously setting out into 2025 I had no idea what I would end up accomplishing. I didn't have any set goals for the year, I just kept moving forward. So as 2026 rolls through, who knows what (mis)adventures and ridiculous projects I'll get myself into. Should be fun though!