Transistor level Atari 2600 simulation

Posted on May 18, 2015 by e8johan

Based on the work from visual6502.org, Greg James has put together a transistor level simulation of the Atari 2600 console. The entire project is available from github.

sim2600

The simulator runs slowly, but that is the trick. Everything is simulated at half-clock accuracy. On my i7 laptop, I get around 12-15 ms/clk, meaning that it is running at ~70Hz. Much slower than the 1.19MHz of the original hardware.

Still, this is an interesting project, demonstrating how to do accurate hardware simulations and how much slower they are, compared to emulators.

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Cheaper Pies

Posted on May 14, 2015 by e8johan

With the launch of the Raspberry Pi 2, the pricing of the old B+ felt a bit out of shape. For $35 you got either the newest model with ARMv7 and far more CPU power, or the older B+ with some additional ports.

raspi_blue_white

Now the Raspberry Pi Foundations has announced some adjustments to the pricing. The new setup means that Raspberry Pi 2 retails at $35, Raspberry Pi B+ at $25 and Raspberry Pi A+ at $20.

This has been made possible through production optimizations, but I would guess that outselling even the most optimistic forecasts might have something to do with it as well. The end result is a pricing for the B+ and A+ that feels more accurate, given the price tag on the Raspberry Pi 2 – and, of course, cheaper pies for everyone.

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Python without an OS

Posted on April 29, 2015 by e8johan

Josh Triplett just did a presentation at PyCon demonstrating Python running in GRUB and EFI. He has a full interactive Python 2.7 environment, including the ability to peek and poke at memory, including the framebuffer.

What excites me about this, is that we are finally back to this:

250px-AtariBasicExample C64_startup_animiert

Via michaelhleonard.

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MEGA65 – a modern 8-bit system

Posted on April 23, 2015 by e8johan

Paul Gardner-Stephen and MEGA, museum of electronic games and art, just announced the MEGA65. It is a modern day 8-bit computer. It is compatible enough with the C64 to run old ROMs and programs, while it supports modern interfaces such as SD-cards, Ethernet and more.

04

The project is open source and available on github. Right now you can download an FPGA bitstream, the VHDL source and some bootstrapping programs. The plans are to build a physical machine with a proper 8-bit look and feel. That is something that I really am looking forward to.

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miniSpartan3 – an affordable FPGA board

Posted on April 8, 2015 by e8johan

DSC_0798-1The miniSpartan3, from Scarab Hardware, is an affordable FPGA board. As the name indicates, it comes with an FPGA from the Spartan series.

At $25, you get a XC3A50 FPGA, while at $35, you get a XC3A200. This puts the board at the same price point as the ever so popular Raspberry Pi.

You also get a whole range of I/Os.

  • an HDMI port
  • 41 digital I/Os
  • a 4 channel ADC
  • 4Mbit SPI FLASH
  • an USB to serial converter
  • 3 LEDs
  • 2 DIP switches

You program the board through the onboard USB JTAG programmer.

It is possible to preorder the board now, and shipments will commence at May 15 2015.

If you want more power, at a slightly higher price point, Scarab Hardware also sells the miniSpartan6+.

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CANtact – hackable CAN interface

Posted on April 6, 2015 by e8johan

cantactThe CANtact, by Eric Evenchick, is an open source car tool. It lets you connect to your car and interact with it over OBD II.

The hardware and software are open and available from the project’s github.

For those who wants to get hacking, the tool comes with a Python library, making it easy

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SigRok lets you measure instructions

Posted on March 26, 2015 by e8johan

ARM_ETMv3The SigRok project produces open source software for interfacing various types of measurement devices such as logic analyzers, oscilloscopes and more. The target is to provide cross platform software that words on Linux, OS X Windows, Android and more for measuring, visualizing and analyzing.

The latest version of libsigrokdecode supports protocol decoders for ARM (tpio, itm and etmv3).

Here’s a quick overview of the protocols that are decoded:

  • The TPIU (Trace Port Interface Unit) is a stream formatter and multiplexer that combines data from several sources into one stream. It is used inside an ARM-based microcontroller or SoC to combine ITM and ETM trace output into a single port.
  • ARM ITM (Instrumentation Trace Macroblock) allows tracing of software events, and also with the help of DWT (Debug, Watchpoint and Trace) the tracing of exceptions and data watchpoints. It also supports periodic sampling of PC values.
  • ARM ETM (Embedded Trace Macroblock) allows tracing of every instruction executed on the CPU. Currently only ETM version 3 (the newest version, present in Cortex-M3 and other ARMv7-m) is supported.

The end result is that you can run traces and use sigrok to perform low level debugging. Awesome!

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Kryoflux – low level floppy controller

Posted on March 25, 2015 by e8johan

kf_board_250When working with retro computers, you sooner or stumble upon aged disk media. Unfortunately data is lost. Various solution exists such as gotek, C64FC or custom hacks.

However, when encountering old, unreadable disks, there is still hope. The problem is that magnetization is lost over time, but by measuring it at greater accuracy, it is possible to retrieve and recreate the information.

One such solution is the KryoFlux floppy controller.

KryoFlux is a USB-based device designed specifically for the reliability and precision needed to acquire reliable low-level reads suitable for software preservation. This is the official hardware developed by The Software Preservation Society, an authority in authentic floppy disk imaging and preservation.

 

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Embrio

Posted on March 23, 2015 by e8johan

This is a Windows only tip, so I’ve not played much with it. However, Embrio does look like a perfect experimentation kit. Take an Arduino, connect your peripherals and draw the solution. It even lets you work in a live mode, getting immediate feedback to your changes.

The whole embrio site is filled with tutorials for common setups. For instance, how to use a breadboard, buttons distance sensors, servos, PWM and more. There are also examples combining these skills into large projects.

The basic version is free, while a perpetual license with all features unlocked costs USD 50.

Via dangerousprototypes.

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Retrospelsmässan

Posted on March 20, 2015 by e8johan

It is time for another round of Retrospelsmässan – the retro gaming fair #1 in Sweden.

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