Archive

Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

Customizing the ANSI / VT-100 Terminal board firmware

Written May 12th, 2018 by

The ANSI / VT-100 Terminal board for the RC2014 computer uses the open source firmware available on GitHub and therefore it can be freely modified by anyone. However, being written with the Parallax Propeller microcontroller’s own Spin language, it may be difficult, even for those who are familiar with microcontrollers programming, to understand how it works, therefore I will try to explain as simply as possible how to do some minor changes to make the firmware a bit more personal.

Read more…

Parallax Propeller Board

Written July 8th, 2016 by

One of our earliest hardware projects, the Propeller Board is our version of a development and prototyping board for the Parallax Propeller microcontrollers. It uses a Microchip PIC microcontroller as the USB-Serial interface used to program the Propeller and comunicate with the programs. It can be powered via either USB or an external dedicated power source, is equipped with an EEPROM to store the microcontroller’s programs and data and a 2×20 pins connector exposing all 32 I/O pins plus the power and control lines.

More informations on:

github.com/maccasoft/propeller-dev-firmware
oshpark.com/shared_projects/KALqBSpm
www.parallax.com

Propeller Game Console

Written February 25th, 2016 by

I’m happy to present my first hardware project, a retro-style video games console with interchangeable cartridges based on the Parallax Propeller microcontroller. For those unfamiliar with this chip, it is a 32bit microcontroller with 32k RAM and 8 cores running in parallel at 80MHz, program code and data are readed from an external EEPROM and has 32 completely programmable input/output pins. The console design uses two of these chips to enhance the performances and allow more complex games than would be possible with just one. A chip is dedicated to the graphics and video output, the other chip is dedicated to the audio output and the main game logic.

Read more…