One hobbyist built a working laptop around a 6502, the chip inside the Apple II

A maker who goes by TechPaula built a laptop around a 6502, the 8-bit chip from the 1970s that Hackaday points out was in the Apple II, and now they’ve finished a second one. They wrote on their blog, Paula’s random tech ramblings, on August 30 that the LT6502b is done, in a translucent orange case. It runs at 10MHz, comes with EhBASIC and a monitor program, and stores its files on a CompactFlash card.

Hackaday covered the first version in February: a 9-inch foldable screen, a 10,000 mAh battery, 46 KB of RAM, a mostly 3D-printed case and a custom keyboard with a little 8-character LED display built in. That one was chunky. The project page on Codeberg says the new case is 31mm tall, against 70mm for the old one, and TechPaula’s blog says it’s half the thickness.

The second one is nicer to live with. The screen grew to 10.1 inches at 1024 by 600, up from 9 inches at 800 by 480, and it’s IPS now. They added a SID emulator for sound and a WiFi modem, and the Codeberg notes say they’ve connected to a few BBSes with it. (A 6502 dialing a BBS over WiFi in 2026 is the best kind of anachronism.) They dropped the expansion slot to keep it sleek.

My favorite part of the post is a list of things TechPaula would change. The WiFi modem is too slow and a bit flaky for real use, the speaker is a bit anemic and the heat insert holes are very weak. If you’ve ever wanted to build a computer from the chip up, I’d read that list before you order a single part, since it’s the stuff nobody puts in the glamour shots. The code and PCB files are on Codeberg; the old GitHub page now says the project moved there.

It’s orange. I want one.