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Hardware News   Hardware News : individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
   posted by Wiesel on 9-Dec-2005 14:13:42 (2691 reads)
The product "8 Bit Baby", that was already announced in forums and with flyers, is finally available! It's an experimenting-board for hobbyists who want to develop hardware on their own. As the name already suggests, the board aims at users of the popular 8-bit computers of the 80s. These computers all have expansion ports that carry all important signals. Unfortunately, most hobbyists do not have the chance to make their own expansions, because experimenting boards normally do not have slot-connectors.

This problem is now solved with the "8 Bit Baby". The board has a special connector for a computer on each of the four sides: [Read on]


- for C64: 44-pin, raster 2,54mm
- for VIC-20: 44-pin, raster 3,96mm
- for C16/C116/plus-4: 50-pin, raster 2,0mm
- for Apple II: 50-pin, raster 2,54mm

The board is prepared for a programmable logic chip by Altera in order to bring hardware development up-to-date. The EPM3064 can replace many TTL-chips with it's 64 macrocells and up to 34 IO-pins. TTL-chips were used on a regular basis for hardware-expansions in the 80s. The Altera chip can be programmed without expensive programming equipment, you just need a so-called JTAG-cable for the parallel port. The development software "Quartus" can be downloaded at no cost from www.altera.com. If you do not want to solder the JTAG-cable on your own, you can buy the "multivolt" version from us for 12,- EUR each.

Axel Muhr has opened the website www.8BitBaby.de for all interested people. It's the perfect place to discuss the "nuts and bolts" of your hardware projects! We will of course publish example circuits on that site, and hope for your participation!

Prices:
8 Bit Baby board (1 pc.): 7,90 EUR
8 Bit Baby board (4 pcs. and up): 6,90 EUR
(prices include 16% VAT where applicable)

We'll offer a parts kit shortly that includes all necessary parts to build the Altera PLD circuit. It's mostly standard-parts, except for the 3,3V voltage regulator that your local electronics store might not carry. Since this part might be hard to get, it's included with every 8 Bit Baby that's ordered before the end of the year!

Fortunately, this product is not affected by the EU laws and the consequences that we announced on november 24th, because the EU-directive does not apply to single parts. There's more products in our portfolio that are not affected, these can still be sold within the EU:

- Deathbed Vigil DVD, signed by Dave Haynie
- 5,25 inch disks double-sided, single-density
- cartridge cases for C64-cartridges
- double-CD Commodore Billboard and Funet archive


8 Bit Baby with ByteBlaster MV programming adapter
    

STORYID: 2742
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AmigaClyde 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 15:27:16
#1 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2007
From: Noranda Canada

Wow! This looks like fun. I have to show this to my son.
He's in electronics and I'm sure he could come out with something good
with this board.


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yoodoo2 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 15:37:55
#2 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Aug-2003
Posts: 1332
From: Stourbridge, UK

Wot no ORIC port?


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_ThEcRoW 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 15:52:06
#3 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 12-Jan-2005
Posts: 834
From: Murcia (Spain)

And where's the msx port?????


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yoodoo2 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 18:55:10
#4 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Aug-2003
Posts: 1332
From: Stourbridge, UK

Despite the lack of Oric support, this looks like a fantastically easy way to get into hardware development for (inferior) 8 bit machines.

I'm glad that Jens has found a way round some of the German bureaucracy too.

Perhaps he just needs to ship Amiga hardware to us in kit form?


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Wiesel 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 20:52:40
#5 ]
Member
Joined: 24-Dec-2003
Posts: 42
From: in the cloud

AFAIK, MSX uses a 50-pin slot in the same format like the Apple II computers. I never had one, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Another thing that might be interesting is the holes for a clockport: If you want to implement a Silversurfer or any other clockport device (E3B's Subway might be interesting!), there's 22 holes in raster 2mm on the card, so you can add a clockport to your 8-bit designs. I would really like to see a VIC-20 hooked to the internet with the RR-Net module

Jens Schönfeld

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JimS 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 9-Dec-2005 22:42:25
#6 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 213
From: Michigan- USA

It's cool... Might have to dig out my old Atari 800XL....

But how about something like this for the Zorro bus? Hmmm?


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Hitman 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 10-Dec-2005 7:30:01
#7 ]
Member
Joined: 16-Jul-2005
Posts: 99
From: Berlin, Germany

Help a poor software developer who doesn't know anything about hardware out! What exactly is this used for? Am I correct in thinking that you can reprogram the onboard chip using a PC and the SDK from Altera, and that you then plug the 8 Bit Baby into your c64 or whatever, and it then has a new piece of hardware that it can use?

So in other words you could use it to develop networking interfaces or interfaces to hard drive etc?

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Kronos 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 10-Dec-2005 17:53:12
#8 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@Wiesel (hmmm should I really thing something with that choice of nick
???)

Any chance of doing a "16Bit-Kleinkind" featuring a Z2-connector ?


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hatschi 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 10-Dec-2005 19:04:10
#9 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 1-Dec-2005
Posts: 2328
From: Good old Europe.

Quote:
Any chance of doing a "16Bit-Kleinkind" featuring a Z2-connector ?


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CodeSmith 
Re: individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby now available
Posted on 12-Dec-2005 1:07:15
#10 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3045
From: USA

Quote:
Any chance of doing a "16Bit-Kleinkind" featuring a Z2-connector ?


Screw that! Jens, you have some experience producing a computer motherboard (the c-one) How about getting one of those PPC SoC's and making a next-gen amiga with it? I certainly trust you to pull it off more than I do everyone else who's tried to before. You've been producing amiga and C64 hardware for years now, you understand the issues involved both from the hardware side and from the community side, and you're well respected by most everyone in the scene, so I doubt you'd have too many problems getting a license from Amiga Inc. I would definitely buy a "Jens One" running OS4, and I bet so would quite a few others.

Edit: fixed typo

Last edited by CodeSmith on 12-Dec-2005 at 01:08 AM.

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