You can buy all kinds of keyboards these days, from basic big-brand stuff to obscure mechanical delicacies from small-time builders. Or, you can go the maker route, and build your own. That’s precisely what [Lambert Sartory] did with their Clavier build. This build goes a bit of a different route to many other DIY keyboards […]
Tang FPGA boards are affordable, and [nand2mario] has been trying to get an x86 core running on one for a while. Looks like it finally worked out, as there is an early version of the ao486 design on a Tang FPGA board using a Gowin device. That core’s available on the MiSTer platform, which emulates […]
Does the in 65F02 “F” stand for “fast” or “FPGA”? [Jurgen] doesn’t know, but his drop-in replacement board for the 6502 and 65c02 is out there and open source, whatever you want it to stand for. The “f” could easily be both, since at 100 MHz, the 65f02 is blazing fast by 6502 standards–literally 100 […]
Since e-ink first hit the market a couple decades back, there’s always murmurs of “that’d be great as a second monitor”— but very, very few monitors have ever been made. When the commecial world is delivering very few options, it leaves room for open source hardware projects, like the Modos Glider and Paper Monitor, projects […]
If you’ve never used a PDP-11 before it’s probably because you simply weren’t around in the 70s and 80s. Although they started as expensive machines only in research labs and industry, they eventually became much more accessible. They’re a bit of a landmark in computing history, too, being largely responsible for the development of things […]
In the beginning was the MOS6502, an 8-bit microprocessor that found its way into many famous machines. Some of you will know that a CMOS 6502 was created by the Western Design Center, and in turn, WDC produced the 65C816, a 16-bit version that was used in the Apple IIgs as well as the Super […]
When it comes to getting retro hardware running again, there are many approaches. On one hand, the easiest path could be to emulate the hardware on something modern, using nothing but software to bring it back to life. On the other, many prefer to restore the original hardware itself and make sure everything is exactly […]
Today we heard from [Richard James Howe] about his new CPU. This new 16-bit CPU is implemented in VHDL for an FPGA. The really cool thing about this CPU is that it eschews the typical program counter (PC) and replaces it with a linear-feedback shift register (LFSR). Apparently an LFSR can be implemented in hardware […]
The Rasberry Pi Zero is a delightful form factor, with its GIPO and USB and HDMI, but it’s stuck using the same old ARM processor all the time. What if you wanted to change it up with some OpenSPARC, RISC V, OpenPOWER, or even your own oddball homebrew ISA and processor? Well, fret not, for […]
If you’re into retro CPUs and don’t shy away from wiring old-school voltages, [Mark]’s latest Intel 8080 build will surely spark your enthusiasm. [Mark] has built a full system board for the venerable 8080A-1, pushing it to run at a slick 3.125 MHz. Remarkable is that he’s done so using a modern Microchip FPGA, without vendor […]