My Blog.

So, I ended up doing something pretty darn cool last night.... I wrote my own file format for my APPLE-1 emulator, HoneyCrisp, replacing my previous loading method. WHY?!? Originally, I was using .bin (binary) files to load programs into memory, allowing them to be ran from WOZMON...there was one major issue with this approach though. With the BIN files, they only contain raw hexadecimal bytes....with no memory address scope to specify where the emulator should load those bytes. As a temporary work-around, I made a rigged patch that would allow the USER to manually specify the starting address of the program... Clearly, this isn't the most friendly approach. An average person would need help loading programs if I stuck with that method. SO, to make it more user friendly, I wrote a new, HoneyCrisp specific file format, that has context surrounding the program's original hex bytes...in other words, the .hc format pre-includes the starting address so the emulator can go "Hey, there's an address. I'll load the bytes to that address!"...Making it to where a user can load any .hc formatted program into the HoneyCrisp Emulator, and instantly have their program loaded into memory, and ready to be ran! Overall, now with the new .hc file format, a user can literally select the program they wanna load, and boom. It's ready to be ran. A prototype of the Apple Cassette Interface emulator can be seen here. Obviously I've improved it since this video: APPLE-1 Emulator, HoneyCrisp | Program Loader Prototype

In the past few weeks, as I've been chipping away at the development of HoneyCrisp, I've also started a YouTube Channel!

This YouTube channel, appropriately titled "Landon Smith", is essentially a visual way for one to get caught up in what my latest project is, my newest music, and much more. As of September 20th, 2025, the time of writing this blog entry, I've published two videos centered around my latest project, HoneyCrisp, which I've talked about in my other entries here on the site. That said, even though HoneyCrisp is my latest project, there will still be a wide variety of content that I'll be making for the channel...some of that content includes previews of my latest projects, but also my lastest music, favorite music, tech reviews, and more. If you'd like to check out mu YouTube Channel, use this link, which'll take you straight to my YouTube channel. I also have a link to my channel on my homepage. ...And of course, if you enjoy my content, please make sure to like the video you watched and subscribe! :)

It's been some time since I last posted a blog entry, however, I've been hard at work, and I can say that the Apple-1 emulator I've talked about in previous posts is about to land with version 1.0.

The HoneyCrisp Emulator, as it's come to be known throughout development, is just a quick and dirty, yet functional, Apple-1 emulation system. Now, it's getting to the point in development where things are looking very promising. With the latest enhancements to the prototypes I've been tinkering with, HoneyCrisp now runs precisely at 1.023 MHz on a fully emulated MOS 6502. No more dips have been shown in its overall preformance, and Integer BASIC, along with WOZMON work almost flawlessly. The shift register video system is also now being emulated in a prototype state, but it's looking amazing so far. Now, before release, all I really need to do is setup a way for users to load programs into BASIC or a hex dump into WOZMON... Due to time constraints I have, I'll have to shelf the ACI (Apple Cassette Interface) emulation for a bit later. But at the end of September, HoneyCrisp Emulator v1.0 will be live on my projects page! Stay tuned for the announcement!

In my last post, I shared how I started tinkering with emulating the very first Apple computer, the Apple-1. At the time, it was mostly ideas, a rough CPU core, minimally working RAM and ROM, etc. Now, just a few days later, I’ve got something that’s actually starting to look and feel like a real emulator. (Because it is!!)

The biggest milestone so far has been finishing a working MOS 6502 CPU emulator. It runs at an emulated 1 MHz (just like the real thing), and while it occasionally dips a little, it’s surprisingly stable. I’ve also implemented 4 KB of RAM and 1 KB of ROM. Historically, the Apple-1 only had 256 bytes of ROM with WOZMON, but for practicality I’ve expanded this to 1 KB so that both WOZMON and Integer BASIC can live there. BASIC isn’t normally in ROM, but since I’m not emulating cassette storage yet, this makes the system usable right away.

For output, the emulator uses a simple HTML <pre> tag to mimic the Apple-1’s 40x24 text display. Every supported ASCII character gets pushed to the screen, which means you can actually type and see something resembling a terminal session. (Eventually, I’d love to dig deeper into emulating the original shift-register based video system for more authenticity—but that’s for later.)

Overall, this feels like the first big step forward. The foundation is here: CPU, memory, ROM, and a terminal display. There’s still a ton of polish and features left to build, but I’m finally at a point where the project feels real. Once things are stable, I’ll share it on my Projects page so anyone can try it out. Stay tuned.

I've been what some would call an "Apple Fanboy" for a majority of my life. Having grown up in a home with predominantly Apple products, it's no suprise that I would grow to love the simplicity of things like the Macintosh or the iPod. Realistically, my obsession of Apple products (and all things retro) started with my dad, Jason Smith. In 2002, he purchased his first Macintosh, a QuickSilver G4 Tower, from CompUSA, a now defunt electronics store. It was a higher end model for the time, that came with Apple's then-new G4 processor at 933 MHz, and 1.25 GB of RAM, and a generous 60 GB hard-disk. (He would later max out the RAM to 1.5 GB and install another hard-disk.) He used it for years until finally buying an iMac around 2011--and even today, it's still in the family, so to speak, sitting in a closet, along with its original software copies of MacOS 9.x and three early copies of OS X.

That Macintosh in particular holds a special place in my heart because not only was it my dad's first Mac, but it was also my first Mac. I started using it when I was around 10 or 11. At that point it had MacOS X 10.3 installed and was still running like a dream for its age. Eventually, I ended up downgrading it to MacOS 9.2.2, and installing MacOS X 10.1 onto the secondary hard-drive.

Now that I've set the scene, it's time to talk about what I've really wanted to do--emulate the first Apple computer from 1976. While this is a rather monumental task, I've taken the liberty of attempting to emulate the core aspects of the what is collectively known as the Apple-1, just for the fun of it. Using exisiting open-source projects as a foundational point for reference, I've (as of the time of writting this) produced a minimal JavaScript emulation of the MOS Technology 6502 processor with a virtualized 4KB of RAM and 1KB of ROM, along with an HTML-based text terminal display of 40x24, the dimesions of the original Apple's video capabilities. Right now, WOZMON sorta works on the emulator in a barely useable capacity. A user can view memory of the emulated 6502 contents in hexidecimal, but memory management and modification has yet to be implemented... Overall, if this project actually works out well, I'll put it up on my projects page! Until then, stay tuned for updates. :)

These days, the internet is pretty loud. With ads everywhere, cookie pop-ups, and constant notifications, it gets overwhelming fast. So I wanted this site to be different. Simple by design, standing out by keeping things clean and easy.

To fully grasp what I'm saying, you have to travel back to the 1990s, when dial-up and Geocities were really popular. In it's infancy, the internet was the literal defintion of the "wild west". There were no definite references to what website should look like, and what its contents should be, allowing for more creativity. This venture into the depths of the unknown spawned a plethora of websites in which people expressed their true selves. But today, a majority of these websites have been buried under corporate polish. Everywhere you look, big corporations have taken over a large chunk of the internet. There's no creativity.

In this polish, there is rarely any truth either. Most sites deliver a narrative of what they want you to hear. Not what they truly are. This site, on the other hand, is designed with a purity that is rarely seen today. I want people to know who I really am as a person, what my interests are, and what my beliefs are. I strongly believe that the best design is one that is reserved, quick, and gives you what you came for: information. It's what the internet was designed for and sadly, it's something we've strayed away from over time.

At the end of the day, keeping things simple and fast isn’t about doing less...it’s about doing what counts. If this site can be a quiet spot on the noisy internet where content comes first, then I’ve done my job.