New hardware revision?

[simon]

if you havent got a manafacture parts list yet send me your bill of materials and ill go track down some manufacturers and ill send it back for your approval.

Great! I just created a BOM which is available for download in the internal area of the forum. A handful parts are missig as I didn't fill in the all values for the new revision 2 parts yet.

Did you have any success yet? If you have any questions...

As for the revised board we should test it atleast to some sort of degree.... maybe try breadboarding/protoboarding the revisions and put them into the circuit?

For some changes this is possible. E.g. yesterday the DS1210 arrived. My plan is to tinker a drop-in PCB which is to be placed into the RTC socket. Other changes like power-supply improvement will be hard to test this way. In the end the first build of the rev. 2 hardware will be THE test. I really could need help here.

My case has been finished now and I have a bit more spare time for reworking the hardware. But I am still missing helping hands.

Simon

[simon]

Well...

Due to lack of interest the whole Revision 2 project has been put on ice until further notice.

Simon

[benchoff]

Well...

Due to lack of interest the whole Revision 2 project has been put on ice until further notice.

Simon

Awwww....

[simon]

I just like to program for a while after months of hardware tinkering: I want to see Kiwi doing something... It is really much fun to discover the system. Lately I ported an old text adventure and spent an evening just playing. "north", "examine", "get keys and lamp", ...
I like to work on a better console with fully VT100/ANSI support and I like to port emuTOS. I think of running EhBASIC upon TOS...

Anyway: Everything I do is still for the project. And if the project makes it to revision 2 there will be more software... But it's getting to big for me alone... So still I like to see helping hands.

Simon

[Chris]

Hi Simon et al,

Just stumbled across your project on Youtube. Looks like an awesome piece of work.

I'm a little to old to have sampled the 16bit delights that were the Amiga and ST, but I did have a Vic20 and C64, SID rocks!
Currently as a hobby I restore old 1980's video games (the 5 feet tall arcade type) and I have loads of weird and wonderful spare parts in my workshop. I was looking at putting these together into a 68K system of some sort just because even though I work in electronics the one thing I have never built is a homebrew computer and have been meaning to for over 15 years, now the kids have left home I have time

I was considering my pile of parts 68000-10 or 68020-16 with FPU and i was planning on using a tms34010 for the GPU and a YM2608 for the sound (all pulls from game boards)

I just wanted to throw something else into the nextgen discussion, looking at the comments above about extra features like DMA and larger memory capacity etc have you considered Coldfire processors (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MCF530X) approx cost is 19GBP? I use these in my work designing embedded control systems and you can get one that pretty much encompasses most of the wish list in a 208 pin QFP. On the plus side it would take up less PCB real estate and enable you to make the PCB a little smaller and maybe cheaper. Admittedly it uses a subset of the 68K addressing modes and opcodes but there is an Atari ST/Falcon project (FireBee) using a similar one and I assume they are software emulating the missing opcodes using traps so that meets your desire to spend more time coding than hacking hardware

Regards

Chris

[simon]

Hi Chris,

first welcome to our little forum!

Ohh the Vic 20 makes me feel like a child again. It was my first computer. Skramble!, Pit and all those type-in programs from Creative Computing. Wheeee!

The tms34010 (and tms34020) is a great piece of hardware. Unfortunately I found it much too late (when I started with the PCB layout already). It looks really very powerful.


Your idea about the Coldfire is good. I would prefer a 68020 or even a 68030 though. I (we) have had plenty good ideas in this thread too (as you wrote). Well, my main problem is that it seems I am the only person who has to implement these ideas. My spare time is limited (job, girlfriend and other reallife tasks) and several requests for help were almost unanswered. This is why I decided to get rid of the known issues only. Well, here again: Only Netwar wanted to help (e.g. testing the next revision, looking for parts to order them as a kit) so I put the project on ice. I feel a bit sad about it because there is so much potential but too much work for me alone.

I could need some developers for helping in

* improving the overall design (blowing up for a MC68020/030 and adding all the features of the wish list)
* writing software (Operating System as well as applications and games)
* creating a CAD design for a case

Last but not least it would give motivation if people would say "I want a Kiwi and I am willing to pay xyz bucks for it". If there yould be a vague number of interested buyers/builders it would help much to calculate the overall costs.

Simon

[amigaclassicrule]

I want to buy one! It is like buying GP2X but better.

[Chris]

Hi Simon,

What resoultion are you currently using on the RTC (1s?), Looking at reducing boardspace and chipcount/cost I wondered if it would make sense to use the RTC within the AVR it can be battery backed while unpowered and use only 10uA according to the application notes. I'm sure I read something from you about having a serial protocol for the KBD/Mouse data it would seem that the RTC data could be added to that and maybe some non-volatile config in the onboard data flash?

Regards

Chris

[simon]

Good question. I don't have the datasheet available right now. Are you sure the Atmel (Atmega8) has a builtin RTC? I haven't written the protocol code for the Mouse yet. The internal RAM could be a bit too small to handle keyboard, mouse and RTC. I am not sure. Maybe there a AVR experts around?

Regards
Simon

[Chris]

yes the Mega8 has the required Real Time Counter with Separate Oscillator so it could be configured to perform the function. I will have a play this weekend I have a mega16 in my STK500 at the moment but it should work the same.

Regards

Chris