Briefly, what with all the concerns surrounding mastodon.social of late and the strongly expressed opinions on whether or not some should defederate with it, I'm hedging my bets and beginning the process of creating an alternate account at @vertigo .
Folks interested in following my progress with #Kestrel3 (more generically, #kestrelcomputerproject ), #vdcII (aka #vdc2), and other #fpga exploits should probably follow me there.
Today, I learned that my #rc2014 computer's BIOS source Makefile produces a .com file in addition to the flash image. Run that .com file, and the computer should soft-kick into CP/M using *that* version of the BIOS.
You all know what this means?
It means it's time to add VDC-II support to the RomWBW BIOS firmware for realsies.
Looking at dmesg, and the USB stack is literally dying, causing one of my cores to livelock, which eventually forces me to hard reboot, since it kills my mouse and keyboard.
That said, I can at least confirm that my rev 4A of my PCB works!!
I decided to rename my RC2014 video card project. I used to call it the "Pixel Pusher". But, since I'm planning on reusing the same FPGA board for different purposes in the future (e.g., keyboard and mouse), I felt the name was a bit too limiting and not descriptive enough.
The new name of the project is BX-PLORER, since it's designed to work with a TinyFPGA BX module.
That moment when, on Hackaday.io (attn @hackaday_projectbot ), you are followed by another hacker whom Steve Wozniak himself looks up to.
I'm not sure I deserve such recognition.
The project in question is, of course, https://hackaday.io/project/170581-vdc-ii , which seems to be receiving a surprising amount of attention (for me, at least).
In a perfect world, this project intends to implement a clone of the Commodore 8568 Video Display Controller (VDC) chip, which is the chip that provided the Commodore 128's 80-column text and 640 pixel graphics capabilities. While the VDC was intended to be used primarily with display devices operating at NTSC frequencies and which relied on interlace for high resolution displays, the VDC-II targets instead VGA and progressive-scanned devices. 100% software compatibility is NOT guaranteed, but I'll strive for compatibility to the greatest extent I know how. It is written using the M-Labs nMigen hardware description software.
Laying the high-risk components first: the level-shifters. They're surface mount, so care is needed for placement and making sure it's not disturbed by a gentle breeze.
I double checked which was pin 1. I've a note/bug against myself to fix that issue.
oooOOOooohhh . . . Look what Mr. FedEx delivered to me today!
Three prototype printed circuit boards for the Pixel Pusher (VDC-II video card for the #rc2014 ).
VDC-Forth's dictionary search isn't going to be very fast. In fact, if my simple RISC-V Forth interpreter is any indication, I'd be happy if I manage to interpret two blocks per second.
I might have some ideas on speeding up at least *some* cases though. We'll see once the basic program is implemented.
This is a preview of what I've got working so far in VDC-Forth. Not much, investing only an hour or so per week at the current development rate.
https://peertube.mastodon.host/videos/watch/32d6093f-db59-4f7a-9f60-50aeca8aaf65
(This post excerpted from another conversation, as I thought it would be of interest to a wider audience.)
Vertigo