Survey: A 65C02-based PC

Nightmaretony · Post by **Nightmaretony** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:43 pm

Garth: Yup;, if you strip off the tiny header information from a windows .wav file, it is the binary sound sample directly. The Apple ][ GS .wav doesnt have the header info, so tis easier to use.

Turns out I have this one song which has some great basswork. you can literally hear the lossage if it gets converted over to mp3 format. Glad I have the original CD of this song!

GARTHWILSON · Post by **GARTHWILSON** » Mon Dec 29, 2003 2:13 am

Since the subject of the PC's inefficiency came up recently in the context of making a do-everything home computer, I thought I'd bring this in.

I was looking at a programming magazine from 1982 (over 21 years ago) and came across an ad for MicroSpeed for the Apple II. At the top it says in big letters, "TEST-FLY A $20 MILLION JET ON AN APPLE? YES. WITH MICROSPEED." It starts by saying,

At the Bethesda Naval Research Center, they've discovered the power of MicroSPEED. The Navy's engineers use this remarkable hardware/software combination to "fly" an advanced fighter aircraft in real time— even making vertical landings on a simulated carrier deck. A "crash" is merely another learning experience, and an opportunity to modify the research aircraft—inside the Apple—to improve tomorrow's combat planes. Surprised that such a sophisticated task is possible on the Apple? So were the Navy's officials, and many others who have discovered THE MICROSPEED DIFFERENCE <snip> ...and incredible Forth extensibility—all at speeds up to 100 times faster than BASIC

MicroSpeed, BTW, came on a single 5.25" floppy. Too bad Microsoft has no concept today of doing such efficient programming. Not many years ago when our grade school still had a lot of Apple II's in the classrooms, the teachers' comments were all about how slow they were. I took a look at all the "educational" software they were using. It was all written in interpreted BASIC, apparently by hobbyists! As you can imagine, they were in a hurry to get rid of those "old, slow computers," because they didn't realize where the real problem lay.

tom · Post by **tom** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 1:06 am

Guys,
I thought I would give my 2 cents worth. I found this site while thinking how much I liked my C64 and how much 98se drives me nuts. (Mostly operator error) I would love to build a 6502 based sbc 6502 inside!!
Maybe as a laptop? Would I be asking to much of a sbc project to run plain text on a small lcd? I am trying to replace my palm 7? -Tom

8BIT · Post by **8BIT** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:18 pm

tom wrote:

Guys,
Would I be asking to much of a sbc project to run plain text on a small lcd? I am trying to replace my palm 7? -Tom

Hi Tom,

I'm actually working on such a project. While it won't be ready for some time, I have been able to prove several concepts. I have completed a 40x25 character composite video display and it won't take much to convert that to a 320x200 LCD. I'm even working on a graphics version as well. Also in the works are an Ethernet interface and USB support. It will most likely be small in size, but will get its power from an adapter.

You can see more at my web site:
http://65c02.tripod.com/

Cheers!

Daryl

Lyos Gemini Norezel · Post by **Lyos Gemini Norezel** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 6:04 am

Daryl... what would it take to modify that for a 1024x768 LCD screen? Would it be too hard?
Lyos Gemini Norezel

8BIT · Post by **8BIT** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:39 pm

If you can point me to the spec sheets for a 1024x768 LCD, I might me able to answer your question. At that size, it will most likely be a color display, which will require a significant amount of RAM.

Daryl

Lyos Gemini Norezel · Post by **Lyos Gemini Norezel** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 4:58 am

This first page won't help with my problem but provides some datasheets on some LCD screens
http://www.woe.onlinehome.de/e_lcddata.htm

This page might help (note: I don't know who made my laptop screen or what brand/model it is)
http://www.larwe.com/technical/lcds.html

Most of the last links files provide info on screens that are 1280x1024 and I think (not sure) my LCD screen can get that resolution. I personally have it set as 1024x768... but i think the higher number is actually correct for the screen itself.
Lyos Gemini Norezel

Lyos Gemini Norezel · Post by **Lyos Gemini Norezel** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:55 pm

Is this project still viable? or is it dead? Also has there been any progress in implementing USB? Now... if this is still a viable project I have a thought on the OS we could use. Written in pure assembler, it should be easily transfered although the 80x86 design might make that difficult to do, it is an OS called MenuetOS. It's not based on any current OS... though if you wanted to compare it... it's closer to Linux/Unix types. www.menuetos.org check it out... it fits on a floppy so it should be that hard to use it in a flash eeprom or such. Any thoughts? Comments? Ideas?
Lyos Gemini Norezel

8BIT · Post by **8BIT** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:39 pm

Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:

Daryl... what would it take to modify that for a 1024x768 LCD screen? Would it be too hard?
Lyos Gemini Norezel

I've read over a few of the documents you provided links for and here's what I found:

An 800x600 display uses a dot clock of ~38 MHz.
A 1280x1024 display uses a dot clock of ~54 Mhz.

Since my project is clocked at only 16MHz, I don't see how I could interface it to something so much faster.

Daryl

Lyos Gemini Norezel · Post by **Lyos Gemini Norezel** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 2:52 pm

8BIT wrote:

I've read over a few of the documents you provided links for and here's what I found:
An 800x600 display uses a dot clock of ~38 MHz.
A 1280x1024 display uses a dot clock of ~54 Mhz.
Since my project is clocked at only 16MHz, I don't see how I could interface it to something so much faster. Daryl

Could your project hardware be... ummm... "modified" to provide ~54MHz? Or would that be too fast to manage with a 6502?
Lyos Gemini Norezel

8BIT · Post by **8BIT** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 3:27 pm

The max clock for the ATmega8 is 16MHz. I don't think its possible to use it for this purpose.

Daryl

Nightmaretony · Post by **Nightmaretony** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 5:32 pm

A decent resolution for televisions would be 320 by 200 which the Apple ][ GS was quite hep at, and most standard arcade games. What usage owuld the super high resolutions need to be for your work? Usually by that time, you would be using a LOT more memory reesources than a simple SBC would provide....

Lyos Gemini Norezel · Post by **Lyos Gemini Norezel** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 6:22 pm

Nightmaretony wrote:

A decent resolution for televisions would be 320 by 200 which the Apple ][ GS was quite hep at, and most standard arcade games. What usage owuld the super high resolutions need to be for your work? Usually by that time, you would be using a LOT more memory reesources than a simple SBC would provide....

I'd like it to be able to use the 1024x768 setting because that is what I'm used to using. LOL.
Lyos Gemini Norezel

GARTHWILSON · Post by **GARTHWILSON** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:45 am

Quote:

I'd like it to be able to use the 1024x768 setting because that is what I'm used to using.

I'm sure most of us would take all the resolution we can get. OTOH, different operating systems, software approach, and applications wouldn't necessarily need as much resolution as a modern PC has. Remember that for limited graphics power, it takes longer to update a screen with more pixels. I have found from experience that although a small screen that requires a lot of up-and-down and side-to-side scrolling is kind of like looking at your work as if through a keyhole, making the software able to move that keyhole around nimbly allows you do to a lot more with a small display than you might think possible.

Quote:

The max clock for the ATmega8 is 16MHz. I don't think it's possible to use it for this purpose.

When we thought we were going to use a CPLD for a product a few years ago, I looked into the Cypress 370i and 37000 families. At that time their max clock rates were over 200 MHz. Their programmer was about $200 and the software and VHDL seminar was free when you bought the programmer. Might be worth looking into.

GARTHWILSON · Post by **GARTHWILSON** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 1:40 am

Since we had been talking about graphics LCDs and controllers further up:
I just ran across a blurb for an LCD controller from Reach Technology for 320x240 LCDs from several manufacturers, both in color and monochrome, both passive and active matrix, both 5V and 3.3V. Going to their website, I found it at http://www.reachtech.com/display/slcd.html . Prices start at $100. (Touch screen and certain options are extra, but I hate touch screens anyway.) It has an RS-232 interface that'll run up to 115kbps, and holds various screens and templates you can call up from the 1/2MB flash memory without having to load them in every time. The website says the supplied firmware includes a graphics library, 24 text fonts, predefined bit maps, and a command interpreter that includes (but is not limited to) commands for drawing lines, circles, and rectangles, and setting text colors. Bitmaps can be downloaded in .bmp file format. No special OS is required on the host processor. If you specify an image that doesn't take the whole screen, you can tell it where to put the image without having to re-calculate all the pixels. The board is 3 x 4.5 inches.