On FPGA Retrocomputing...
With respect to the previous entry, I did dig up my Digilent Spartan-3 board and give myself a bit of a refresher on how to program it in Verilog and VHDL, as well as how to attempt to generate UCF files to bring over projects that were written with different physical boards in mind. That was kind of fun. And I did load FPGApple as well as Gary Becker's Apple IIe. It has been so much fun, but unfortunately, even when waving money around, I'm as-yet unable to get ahold of a C-One board. The other hitch I'm running into is that nobody wants to write the Apple IIgs in Verilog or VHDL just yet. It seems that the Ensoniq DOC, the 65C816, and other chips all present enough of a problem that the project would cut into people's Day Jobs, and even if I were to pay their hefty consulting fees and make it their Day Job, it wouldn't sit right with them.
I can understand those attitudes. Unfortunately I'm not really close to doing the work myself either. I'm better than I thought I would be at this stuff, but I'm not yet ready to reverse-engineer these chips or produce a cycle-accurate 65C816 (and it would have to be cycle accurate). Nonetheless, it is possible for me to produce from this experience, a very small, probably even handheld, Apple IIe. Only now in 2007, have I learned of the personal pleasure of playing Oregon Trail on a computer you built yourself (even if the engineering wasn't your own).
Okay, but what of the IIgs?
I did continue to consider a portable Apple IIGS, but without FPGAs, you can guess this project would have to resort to using the existing (huge) supply of roughly 12"x9" Apple IIGS logic boards. The only portable IIgs I am presently capable of producing, would have the following attributes:
- 12x9 inch wooden case, about 2 inches thick (GS tablet?)
- LCD screen, heck even a 15" would fit in there, as long as the logic behind it will permit 15KHz horiz refresh (and most car/mobile stuff will)
- PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, thanks to logic from the Belkin adapter discussed below
- To maintain thickness, I'd have to solder each card-edge pin when using expansion cards, instead of using the card slot (and I'd only need one card, a CompactFlash adapter, if I used a ROM03 logic board since it has 1MB of RAM already, although we lose a teensy bit of compatibility by using ROM03)
- Power supply could be 8 or more 'D' cell batteries fed into 12V and 5V voltage regulators
All in all, what I've described is interesting, and possibly worth pursuing further, although any sane person has to stop here, and point out that a 1GHz UMPC can be bought for $800, that will perfectly emulate a GS, thus obviating the need to perform this sort of hackery except for sheer massochism. But that's not to say I've ruled it out.
The Belkin F1D080While conceptualizing the aforementioned portable-IIgs, I frantically searched for anything that would allow me to use a PS/2 keyboard and mouse with an ADB Macintosh (or Apple IIgs). It seems that this is a bit of a rare find, and I was unable to find anything, even on eBay. By sheer chance, I found one on Craigslist. I was browsing used computer listings and saw a guy selling a PowerMac 6500, which did not interest me at all, except for the last sentence, which casually mentioned that he'd throw in an adapter to use PS/2 keyboard and mouse. I immediatedly emailed for details, and the reply came that the adapter was "manufactured by Belkin." Here, I knew the F1D080 had found me.
You cannot find this gizmo (correction, a fellow later told me that he'd found a place online that still had stock, although they were $119 each, before taxes and shipping!), and I'm sure again, that an EE jock could produce one in a weekend, but yet again I must stress that presently that's beyond my means. So anyway, it's here and it works. I tested it with the ROM 01 Apple IIGS logic board I had laying around here (by soldering +5V and +12V onto the power pins from a power supply I had laying around from an old Firewire chassis and tying the - and GND lines together). Presumably it also works on the NeXT Turbo Cube upstairs, but I haven't been in a hurry to fire that beast up and find out.
Note: Regarding the above ad-hoc IIgs I temporarily had going, I should point out that I was unable to get composite video output, and so to verify the operation of the Belkin box, meant typing blindly and doing things that would generate audio output. I kid you not, I actually broke to the BASIC prompt with Cmd-Reset, then did call -151, and keyed in a program to do STA $C030 / NOP / NOP / BRA $300, then 300G, and listened for the noise on the speaker. That's how I knew the box worked. Nerd story of the week.
Presently I've offered this magic box to Apple II-related reverse engineers, and soon I believe they'll be deconstructing it in an effort to make this sort of thing more widely available.
Okay, so two more points I want to cover before I wrap up this whole Retro crap for another week or so...
The Commodore-64 DTVYes, my C64 joystick arrived in the mail! My first computer was an Atari 800, and I never owned a Commodore 64, so this was my first time playing Speedball. Oh, and Gateway To Apshai is definitely better on the Atari 800. I got the US Version 1 and have not as-yet hacked anything onto it. I noticed that you can still get the PAL Version 2 and perhaps I will. The NTSC conversion doesn't look that difficult to perform. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the games though. At least for another day or two.
XBox USB Adapters
If my understanding is correct, the XBox's controller connectors (like the Gamecube, Playstation series, and maybe even the Dreamcast) are electrically USB. It should come as no surprise, then, that eBay is full of $5 and $10 offerings that have an XBox connector on one side, and a female USB connector on the other, allowing you to add a keyboard and mouse to your XBox, thus handily overcomplicating a video game console into a computer. I tried this.
XBMC recognizes both keyboard and mouse, allowing you to use the arrow keys and Enter for navigation, as well as pointing and clicking with the mouse. Nice.
XPort emulators also recognize them, but the keyboard can't be behind a hub. This is tricky with respect to the Apple Pro Keyboard, since it has a built-in hub (and so, it makes sense that it would internally be behind that hub) and thus does not work. But Circuit City happily sold me a $15 USB keyboard that didn't have a built-in hub and did work. KEGSX has decent Apple IIgs emulation, but the mouse and sound can be jittery in some games. AtariXLBox, however, appears to work perfectly.
And let me share with you a secret that I've known for over 20 years:
1. Boot Crush, Crumble, & Chomp! by Epyx, on your Atari 800. Recall that it's a BASIC game, so you'll have to either (virtually) insert a BASIC cart or enable XL BASIC ROM.
2. When prompted for Fast or Slow, hit Break (AtariXLBox seems kind enough to use USB keyboard's BREAK key for this) and you're at the ATARI BASIC prompt.
3. LIST line 2054. Note the minus sign. Re-enter line 2054 with a + where the - sign was. Type RUN to restart the program.
4. Enjoy creating your monster with all the features, as credits increase instead of decrease, as you buy every feature.
I've no idea how or why I still remember this, but it worked last night.
Finally I make with the Wrap-Up
As you can see above, I've wasted entirely too much time on retrocomputing this week, and my soldering iron needs a break. If you'd like to pick one of these projects for yourself, I'd recommend the XBox USB cables, since it's a low-cost, low-impact project that yields a lot of fun results. True, I've lost many hours in the past week to these projects, but I've also grown a lot closer to PCB-based electronics and lost a bit of that shyness that keeps 'normal' people from whipping out that soldering iron and modifying stuff, and for that I am truly thankful.
-Chris