24 December 2022 - 31 December 2022

1. MIT OCW
- 1.1. Done for the year.
2. Mill Controller #2
3. Alum Rock Data Center
- 3.1. need to check rocky, others? (arch?) for suitability
- 3.2. recheck ALMA, now that CERN and Fermilab are using it
4. Virtual Orchestra
5. gat
- 5.1. spectrogram done - matches 'octave' output
6. RIOT drivers
7. mcd05 32 button/led box
8. AMD 2900 bitslice computing
- 8.1. Probably my oldest uncompleted project
- 8.2. Exploring possibilities for something constructive
9. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU
10. Rockwell R65F11
- 10.1. Still evaluating.
- 10.2. Dev board
11. ACK
12. POSIT
13. PLD programming
14. EPROM Programming
15. MAME
16. More project ideas
17. David Davies

1. MIT OCW

1.1. Done for the year.

2. Mill Controller #2

2.1. Mounted on mill - ready or testing

2.2. Need to investigate new HW/SW for eventual replacements

2.2.1. Old crap ain't gonna last forever

2.2.2. Buildroot/Linux 5.15 PREEMPT + latency tools

First pass done - boots on real hardware

2.3. Alternative architecture

2.3.1. Split off stepper motor controller to separate board

Increase latency tolerance on controller

2.3.2. Use emc2 MODBUS/TCP protocol for stepper and other IO

3. Alum Rock Data Center

3.1. need to check rocky, others? (arch?) for suitability

3.2. recheck ALMA, now that CERN and Fermilab are using it

4. Virtual Orchestra

4.1. sfz file tests

4.1.1. need tooling to edit sample files

4.2. increasingly skeptical whether quality results are possible

4.3. maybe should treat as platform for concatinative synthesis

4.4. maybe should just accept the limitations and work with it

One should not be disappointed that a guitar can't sound like a flute.

5. gat

5.1. spectrogram done - matches 'octave' output

6. RIOT drivers

Implemented - needs testing.

6.1. WS2801

6.2. Velleman KA03

6.3. Velleman KA05

7. mcd05 32 button/led box

7.1. Recovered schematics.

7.2. Planning software.

7.3. Received STM32F767 Nucleo144 with Ethernet.

7.3.1. Test program running.

7.3.2. Need to consider CoAP multicast discovery.

7.3.3. Consider simpler architecture with STM32F767 as a 'hub'.

7.3.4. Consider CAN interface to hub.

8. AMD 2900 bitslice computing

8.1. Probably my oldest uncompleted project

8.2. Exploring possibilities for something constructive

Create verilog models for 2903/2910 and verify against hardware?

9. Hitachi HD68B09E CPU

9.1. RAM/UART/IO

9.2. Started schematic

9.2.1. Standard peripheral set for 8 bit CPU bringups

Board schematic planned - need Kicad symbols

9.3. Arduino Mega 2560 DMA loader

…Along with standard 8 bit loader

9.4. Generate quadrature clock directly

9.5. Full Bus SW Emulation infeasable

6809 1000ns maximum cycle time too short

10. Rockwell R65F11

10.1. Still evaluating.

10.2. Dev board

Reverse engineered some of a mostly fully built development board with one part missing. As near as I can tell, that one part is some sort of programmable address decoder with a pinout that does not correspond to any part I can find. Kind of like a GAL but with inputs on top and outputs on bottom (as opposed to left and right in a standard GAL). I have no idea what the provenance of this board is and if it ever worked.

11. ACK

Compiled Amsterdam Compiler Kit. Got completely distracted with 6502 binary-to-hex conversion using decimal mode arithmetic.

12. POSIT

Investigated Posit floating point format.

13. PLD programming

Looks like Atmel 16V8 is the last 5V PLD part left standing. Maybe not surprising that there still doesn't appear to be a fully open source tool chain for programming. How hard could it be? (!) Could next-pnr generic help? Might be easier to use espresso for logic array and program output logic bits directly for simple stuff.

14. EPROM Programming

Found some software for Needham programmer. Need to check electrolytic caps on ISA board.

15. MAME

15.1. Subset builds in debug mode

Full debug fails - not enough disk or memory.

15.2. gs6809 serial IO doesn't work right with PTY and other streams

15.3. ampro (Z80/Z80SIO) does work with PTY

15.4. Evaluating what is needed for other emulators.

16. More project ideas

16.1. Zuse Z3 simulation in Verilog

Good excuse for floating point ALU design.

16.2. GMPForth ports to simulators

16.2.1. SIMH for some targets (vax)

16.2.2. MAME looks interesting for microprocessor system emulations

How to support erzatz systems?

16.2.3. Ports to classic figFORTH targets

16.3. GMPASM assembler

May be useful for handbuilt and rare systems (DMX1000?).

16.4. Extracting ISO Superboard Forth ROMS for MAME emulation

16.5. 'bwocl' OpenCL tooling

16.5.1. Offline compilation

16.5.2. Standard Kernel Running

16.6. hardware support for classic 5V CPUs

16.6.1. RTX2000, CDP1802 still available!

16.6.2. 6502, 68000, 320C30, others on hand

16.6.3. CPUs with totally async bus may be supportable without RAM

16.6.4. Could use small foorprint monitor in asm (gmpmon?)

16.7. Existing 'retro' hardware still working?

16.7.1. OSI Superboard

Unknown. Composite to VGA adapter didn't seem to work. Needs analysis. Found OSI model 610 board underneath!

16.7.2. Super Jolt

No output. Needs analysis.

16.7.3. Ampro Little Board

Not booting. Needs analysis.

16.7.4. Rockwell R65F11 Demo board

UART sending "NO ROM" at 2400 7N1 as expected with 2MHz xtal. MAME emulator possibilities?