Mastodawn

Does the world need a new single-board computer design with an MC68060 CPU?
I'm thinking about 4GB of DDR3 DRAM, one serial port, one M.2 slot for an NVMe SSD, and one Ethernet port (probably 1Gbps). Not intended to be software-compatible with any existing board or system.

Same question, but various 32-bit RISC processors? MC88110? Am29000/Am29050 (pin compatible)? Intel 80960KA/KB/MC/XA? TI TMS34020?
#retrocomputing

Show thread

ティージェーグレェ 2d ago

Need? Probably not.

As far as wants, I still want an Amiga with an MC68060; admittedly, such things cost a lot (still) and I need (and also want) a house more than I need another computer. So that my meager material possessions aren't stuck in storage. Also, the Amiga 4000 wasn't an SBC, IIRC the CPU was on a separate PCB (which made CPU "upgrades" easier I guess!).

Can new MC68060s even be purchased in 2026? I think NXP maybe owns the rights (Motorola sold them to Freescale which in turn was acquired by NXP if I remember correctly) but I don't think they're still fabbing anything related to them? Sourcing such parts in the after market (I look for such things, on the off chance I may be able to populate the Amiga 4000 reverse engineered PCB I bought years ago) and they're few and far between.

I'm not too interested in old 32-bit RISC based systems either, or new systems, based on old 32-bit RISC designs.

Though, I did just buy a few 32-bit RISC-V based thingamajigs they were like, $10 a piece, so not exactly bank breaking.

Show thread

🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑

@teajaygrey
Motorola Semiconductor was spun off as Freescale, and purchased by NXP.
The MC68060 hasn't been made for many years. They can usually be found on eBay for $300 to $500. Caveat Emptor.
I'm not designing this to be compatible with any existing computer, or to have video output, etc., though maybe those could be added. My own use case is just to run BSD on them.