Monochrome Arcade Device
MAD-65 is a home-built arcade console. Two 65C02 processors run side by side at 14.3 MHz — one plays the game, the other draws it — on a black-and-white screen like it's 1982, except it's not.
It is a real machine made of real chips you can source today, but until you do, you can use our simulator which runs on your PC right now.
C.E.T.A.S. — the first MAD-65 game. Beta out now: download, unzip, run. No console required.
Three boards, ~33 chips, all through-hole. What it is, what it costs, and how far along the design is.
Full technical documentation, the OS API, and a developer's guide with worked examples in 6502 assembly.
With no game cartridge fitted, MAD-65 runs its built-in diagnostic demo. It exercises most of the hardware and firmware at once: sound chips, vector graphics, scrolling text, live response to the joysticks, and the build date of each ROM — printed into the static background layer, which proves the background-copy hardware is working too. When you see the cube spinning in space, your machine and both its ROMs are working correctly.
| CPUs | 2× WDC W65C02S @ 14.318 MHz |
|---|---|
| Display | 400×300 mono, output as 800×600 SVGA @ 60 Hz |
| Sound | 2× SN76489 PSG + 1× YM2413 FM, stereo |
| Memory | 64 kB per CPU, 128 kB double-buffered VRAM |
| Cartridges | 8 kB banked window, up to 1 MB per cartridge |
| Logic | 74HC series TTL + 5× ATF1508AS CPLD. No FPGA, no SoC. |
New firmware. Games get 8 kB more RAM: once a cartridge boots, the half of the CPU ROM that holds the demo is theirs to use. The demo's music is now stored compressed to make room. Build 260911.
New firmware. Compressed loading, and rectangles on the background layer — including the comb, which is the only way to get partial coverage onto a write-only surface. Build 260903.
New firmware. CIRCLE16 and a rotated/scaled
polygon family, both GPU-clipped and off-screen safe.
Build 260901.
New firmware. Full-resolution lines and polyline chains. Build 260827.
New firmware. Ghost sprites, and a new demo theme by Maro Szczerski. Build 260824.
C.E.T.A.S. beta is available. The first game for the console, playable today on Windows through the bundled simulator. Download it here.
First fully working firmware. Both ROMs with the built-in diagnostic demo completed.