MOVE.W ([5, A2], D0.W, $ 23456), D1. Microprocessor technology! Is there any study subject worse than that? What to do if you hate it, do not understand anything and the next exam is only three days ahead? – Declare it your most favorite and let the magic happen!
A hard nut to crack
About programming a Motorola 68000, we knew as much as a rooster knows about laying eggs.
We were three young students of electrical engineering, sitting helplessly at the living room table, staring at papers. In-front of us copies of inscrutable lectures on microprocessors and their programming in “Assembler”.
Assembler, that is writing a cake recipe like this: “Take the flour stored under the address 5A3A and move it to register 4H3F that you had declarated as a bowl. Then merge eggs and flour in a bit-wise Boolean AND operation …”
In other words: eh?
So we spent three tormentingly long days trying to get it baked and – Hallelujah: everyone just passed.
Tomorrow an expert
How exactly it came, God only knows. It must have been an inspiration, a crazy idea – sprung from the moment. I hated this micro-processor course, but had to go through it as it was a compulsory part of the curriculum.
“I declare microprocessor technology as my favorite subject and become an expert!”
The learning suddenly became easier and it started to be fun. The small semiconductor millipedes and I just pretended to be best friends – and miraculously we became it. What could be more exciting than tickling their metal legs with FIFOs and LIFOs, shifting register contents back and forth, and finally teaching my graduation robot in Shanghai how to dance?
2002, with Ole von Beust in China 
Pictures above: The Mayor of Hamburg and his delegation liked the demonstration of the robot controller. The cable tangle was the self-soldered prototype, which is also referred to as engineering “art” 😉
Love what you hate
Once the un is removed from the unloved, unimagined doors and subsequent doors will open: in my example it meant various internships and work assignments on four continents, adventure travel, a high starting salary, finding a woman…
To stick with electrical engineering: the phase shift of 180 degrees has the potential to overcome inner resistors, increase the frequency of happiness, give live more voltage and its current a new direction.
2019, Oliver Schömburg (Olliwaa)
