Anybody that ever did some programming on a Unix based system will be familiar with Core Dumps, but ever wondered where that name came from? It comes from a time (1950s - 1970s) where computer stored data on ferrite cores, a lot of tiny ferrite cores. And in case something went wrong, the data stored on those tiny ferrite cores was printed, dumped, on paper to be analyzed, a core dump. [Read More]

Prettige Kerst, Merry X-Mas, of course in style, by using a Digilent Nexys Video FPGA board to control a HDMI monitor. The idea behind this mini X-Mas holiday project was to create a GPU for my RISC-V core, so it could output things on a monitor instead only turn on/off some LED’s. Since my VHDL skills are still not that great and calculating 1920x1080 pixels at 60Hz would mean FPGA clocks up to 147MHz which leave very little room for mistakes. [Read More]

In 2020 I made a SID player based on a Lattice MachXO2 that was connected via SPI to a STM32G4 board running Zephyr. Now I got a Trenz SMF2000 board that has a Microsemi SmartFusion2 that has a Cortex M3 and a FPGA on one chip, so connecting the CPU to the FPGA is a lot easier. Instead of going via SPI from CPU to FPGA, it is possible to use a AHB bus to connect the CPU to the FPGA fabric. [Read More]

One of my first projects when I started working for transtechnik (now ETC) was a DMX512 router, called E-Gate. References to that project can still be found on the ETC website. And even the windows software I wrote, called E-Gatekeeper, can still be downloaded, and it still works (even on Windows 10) (E-gatekeeper screenshot image copyright by ETC GmbH) The hardware was based on a Motorola (now NXP) PowerPC MPC860 CPU with a Xilinx FPGA. [Read More]

Even tough RS232 is from the 60’s it is still something that should be available on every device (a TTL version is acceptable too). Most embedded CPU’s, even big ones like the iMX8 have one or more serial ports that are useable without the need of complex software stacks. Especially that serial ports can be used without a complex software stack, on some CPU’s it can be as simple as writing a byte to a register, makes them a very powerful tool. [Read More]

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. The famous quote from Carl Sagan could also be applied to computer science, if you want to make a program from scratch you must first invent the universe. Since I only had 2 weeks vacation, and inventing a whole universe would have been to much work, I skipped a few parts and started with designing a RISC-V core. [Read More]

Prettige Kerst, Merry X-Mas, of course in style, by using a Xilinx FPGA to control a cheap 64x32 RGB LED matrix display. I wrote a small program in VHDL that shift out a image to the RGB module and takes care of everything. After building it with Xilinx Vivado the resulting schematic looks like this; Of course if this is not an example of how to do things for a real project, first of all the LED module lacks features like PWM control, current correction, over temperature protection, and simply the needed brightness compared to professional displays that are for example produced by my one of my clients. [Read More]

After, Fixing the mainboard Refurbishing the PSU Installing the SCSI2SD Installing the GoTek drive Finally done! Well almost, because there where some small problems. First of all, and I wonder why I didn’t notice that before, the bottom of the case was badly warped. So I had to take everything out again and bend the case into a bit more acceptable shape. And of course rebuild the whole thing again. [Read More]

After the SCSI HD conversion from a real HD to a SD-Card, it is time to add a way to easily use floppy images by adding a GoTek floppy emulator. The GoTek case is a lot smaller than the 3.5" floppy opening, some kind of frame is needed. Since the previous owner already drilled some holes in the slot plate I used that as a frame for the GoTek. [Read More]

After fixing the Amiga 2000 motherboard and the refurbishing the PSU I upgraded the HD from a real SCSI-drive to a SD-Card via a SCSI2SD. Together with my brother in law and his company Art and Tech VoF we created a 3D printed bracket that makes it possible to attach the SCSI2SD onto the Amiga SCSI controller card where the HD used to be. [Read More]