Raven. A homemade Atari-like computer
Posted: 10 Apr 2024 20:34
Some time ago I made a small and very basic 68000 computer.
Simple as it was, that whole process was incredibly satisfying and it lead me to start putting together a design of something that would be more like a real and usable computer.
I call it Raven.
It's not nearly as posh as that other bird from Atari :)
More details can be found on Github: https://github.com/agranlund/raven
It's still in bring-up phase but this first prototype has shown enough promise that I think it deserves a build blog.
There will eventually be a second/final revision based off notes I'm collecting from getting everything on this one tested.
This is the status of the machine as of today:
The specs of prototype A0:
68060 CPU, 48MB RAM (max), 16MB ROM (max)
High speed serial, Legacy serial, Legacy parallel
YM2149 sound, Battery backed clock
Eiffel for keyboard+mouse+joysticks
Audio in/out, Midi in/out (TRS Type-A)
4x ISA expansion (16bit)
It's never intended to be a 100% hw compatible computer - just enough to run the OS friendly stuff.
There's YM and MFP onboard mapped to the normal Atari locations which helps of course.
Longer term, I'd like to explore using my CaSTaway port for running ST games on it by help of (partial) software emulation.
But really, the main goal is just to have fun making my own computer.
I'm basically treating this as a one-off for me, though all the stuff will go to Github once it's past prototyping if someone else wants to build one.
(This probably reflects on the design. I'm sure if someone where to make some kind of product meant to compete with existing stuff they would make different design decisions)
Simple as it was, that whole process was incredibly satisfying and it lead me to start putting together a design of something that would be more like a real and usable computer.
I call it Raven.
It's not nearly as posh as that other bird from Atari :)
More details can be found on Github: https://github.com/agranlund/raven
It's still in bring-up phase but this first prototype has shown enough promise that I think it deserves a build blog.
There will eventually be a second/final revision based off notes I'm collecting from getting everything on this one tested.
This is the status of the machine as of today:
The specs of prototype A0:
68060 CPU, 48MB RAM (max), 16MB ROM (max)
High speed serial, Legacy serial, Legacy parallel
YM2149 sound, Battery backed clock
Eiffel for keyboard+mouse+joysticks
Audio in/out, Midi in/out (TRS Type-A)
4x ISA expansion (16bit)
It's never intended to be a 100% hw compatible computer - just enough to run the OS friendly stuff.
There's YM and MFP onboard mapped to the normal Atari locations which helps of course.
Longer term, I'd like to explore using my CaSTaway port for running ST games on it by help of (partial) software emulation.
But really, the main goal is just to have fun making my own computer.
I'm basically treating this as a one-off for me, though all the stuff will go to Github once it's past prototyping if someone else wants to build one.
(This probably reflects on the design. I'm sure if someone where to make some kind of product meant to compete with existing stuff they would make different design decisions)