Freshly compiled OTHELLO.C

­Once upon a time in prehistoric days of personal computing, Robert Halstead of MIT wrote a game of Othello in C programming language. In late 1978, Leor Zolman really wanted to play that game on his micro but couldn't, he had to write a C compiler first. The compiler he wrote became known as BDS C -- one of the most widely known and influential C compilers of the 8-bit era.

In the fall of 2007 I really wanted to run a few old games and demos for an awesome but mostly forgotten computer called Vector-06C and, disappointed by the state of existing software emulators, created my own hardware implementation. Reverse engineered without a complete circuit diagram, with scarce documentation, tested by software written for the original computer it has fancy graphics and it plays music. But I find its role as a historical link the most fascinating.

Recreated in 2008 for want of a demo, using a compiler written in 1979 for want of an Othello game, running the game from mid-70's on a 21st century FPGA, here it is. Looking not very impressive but with a kind heart, this is an entirely free and open source project. It utilizes approximately 30% of EP2C20 FPGA on Altera DE1 development board, fully recreating a 8080-based computer that was popular in the former Soviet Union in late 80's to mid-90's. It's worth noting that unlike many other Soviet-era designs this computer was truly original, borrowing very little from any other computer of the time.

Other projects created for, or ported to the DE1 kit include at least a couple of ZX Spectrum clones, FPGApple: an Apple ][ recreation, Minimig: the Amiga clone, One-Chip MSX, and new projects keep emerging.