Story

A computer with nothing hidden inside

LDA42 is not retro nostalgia. It is a machine built from scratch so that computers can be understood — while having fun with them.

Today's computers are miracles nobody can see into. Ours is small, slow and transparent: from the pixel on the TV down to a single CPU micro-step, everything can be watched, single-stepped, rewound in time and understood. When something breaks, it isn't magic — it's a bit you can find.

LDA #42

The company name is executable code. LDA #42 is a valid instruction of our CPU: load the accumulator with 42 — the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Where the names come from

The MAXIK console is named after our son, the AGATA-1 processor after our daughter. Children's names on computers have a history — the Apple Lisa, the Amiga's Agnus and Denise chips, the Czechoslovak Ondra and Maťo.

The architecture both of them speak is called SAP-3/16.

Learning through play

The philosophy is four centuries old: schola ludus, school through play, as Comenius meant it. This time in assembly. First you want to beat your brother at Bomberman. Then you want to know why your plane turns slowly in Sopwith. And then you find yourself reading microcode.

What we hold to

• Total machine transparency — no layer is a black box.
• Determinism — the same program runs identically in the browser and on the console.
• Games are tested by playing them — until it is fun, it isn't done.
• Web and software free forever — you pay for atoms (hardware, paper) and time.
• Czech and English — all content in both languages.