Hey Rob,
Understood on the price point. I was digging into that LCD a bit more
to find documentation and I found a different site that has this same
module but with a SPI or parallel interface (instead of MIPI). Probably
a parallel 8080 interface version would be the way to go, with or
without the touch screen (with would be cool):
https://www.buydisplay.com/spi-1280x400-7-84-ips-tft-lcd-module-with-ra8876-capacitive-touch-panel
Ken
On 5/24/21 4:37 AM, Rob Messer wrote:
Ken,
That all sounds really promising. I will order one or two of those
screens for a mockup. I will meet with the engineer who will help with
the housing. I will draw it today or tomorrow in CAD and work with him
to refine it. I might as well dimension it for that screen. The only
question is about ports. We can fix that later as there will be
several iterations. When I have the drawing done we can discuss your
thoughts. I will need to know what board we will use or at least some
dimensions. A cool thing with the FPGA would be that they could addany sy
I am not an FPGA guy but I guess the idea would be to put it on a less
expensive board. Remember Ken that I have not touched an FPGA since
2007 and that was brief. I think the less expensive the better on the
board so the COGs are low on the design and this will make it as
accessible as possible.
BR
/RGM
On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 7:30 AM Ken Pettit <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Rob,
Also, finding a large format 240x64 LCD is near impossible. I
found some that are 5" diagonal, but compared to the 8" diagonal
on the Model 100, this is still pretty small. For a modern update
(i.e. Model 401), you would probably want to to with something
like this full color LCD and take care of the protocol difference
in an RTL module in the FPGA:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/292910561674?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=292910561674&targetid=1264366839729&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9061205&poi=&campaignid=11616981724&mkgroupid=123084477340&rlsatarget=pla-1264366839729&abcId=9300455&merchantid=102019429&gclid=CjwKCAjw-qeFBhAsEiwA2G7Nl9j3Z7bUDPWfr_bR3zQ2FELXd8BEcvVFlTCh1q_JiMbD7aQ5DUdDYxoCyS4QAvD_BwE
Ken
On 5/22/21 2:18 PM, Rob Messer wrote:
Ken,
That is awesome! I am admittedly a mechanical engineer and I took
one semester of computer engineering and VHDL programming and
changed majors (I was more of a beer drinker than D&D guy). In
any event I will rope in some colleagues and badger them with
questions. Another question is whether there are LCD screens
close to what the Model 100 had still available (240X64) with
similar dimensions. It think backlit would be great.
I have been really saddened to see fewer and fewer Model 100s on
Ebay. I also think the machine could be very useful still. I am
thinking about people who want to work without distraction of the
internet and have some basic capabilities. Imagine adding some
minor features like bluetooth file transfer and an SD card slot,
that would make this a very useful device. It will be the model
104 :)
If you want to share this on Github that would be great! I will
be sure to update you on the progress!
BR
/RGM
On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 9:44 PM Ken Pettit <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hey Rob,
I have an RTL design I worked on YEARS ago where I was trying
to get the
Model 100 in an FPGA along with some extensions. It was back
when there
was a lot of talk on the list about a Model 401. For those
who weren't
around then or don't recall, the Model 401 was something that
was
discussed around April Fools day (thus the number 401) about
an updated
Model 100.
I actually had this running somewhat on an Actel Igloo FPGA
at that
time, though not fully. I believe I had extended the 8085
instruction
set to add relative jump and branch opcodes using the "MOV
A,A", "MOV
B,B" etc. opcodes which are basically useless and not used in
the M100
ROM. I was also planning at that time to have a 2-processor
system
where the LCD and Keyboard would be shared by both the
extended 8085 and
an ARM core. The keyboard controller I wrote detects a
hotkey escape
sequence to connect the LCD and keyboard to either the ARM
interface or
the 8085 interface.
I just re-ran my RTL simulation and I see that it is at least
running
and generating an output on the RTL testbench LCD monitor
that I wrote.
This LCD monitor in the testbench monitors all LCD writes and
outputs
"pixels" as X'x to a Linux /dev/pty device. Then with
minicom connected
using Linux socat, I can see what the emulation is sending to
the LCD.
I have attached a snapshot of the output of the simulation
(the dots are
actually very small X's, just zoomed out so it's like a
3-point font on
minicom or something). You can see the minicom status line at
the bottom
in a very small font. I can see the time isn't advancing, so
maybe
something not quite right with the clock chip RTL (uPD1990.v).
If you would like to use this RTL as a starting point, I'm
happy to post
it to github and give you a link. The files in this design are:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 4108 Apr 16 2012 armspi.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 97936 Apr 12 2012 cpu8085.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 2468 May 8 2016 fifo1kx13sram.v
-rw-r--r-- 1 kpettit users 1531 May 9 2016 hvsync_generator.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 19422 Mar 31 2012 im6402.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 8344 May 6 2016 keymap.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 12032 May 5 2016 keyscan.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 40316 May 7 2016 lcd.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 687 May 9 2016 m100rom.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 6383 Apr 13 2012 mapper.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 16475 May 7 2016 model401.v
-rw-r--r-- 1 kpettit users 7842 May 5 2016 nr5_tx8n.vhd
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 6161 May 4 2016 nr5_uart.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 5947 Apr 7 2012 pio8155.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 1825 Mar 23 2012 ramCore512.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 1836 Apr 11 2012 ramCore512x9.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 9971 Apr 15 2012 socTop.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 1036 May 9 2016 sram32k.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 1114 May 7 2016 sram512.v
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 1116 May 8 2016 sram512x9.v
-rw-r--r-- 1 kpettit users 9053 May 5 2016 uart_rx8n.vhd
-rw-rw-r-- 1 kpettit users 10794 Apr 7 2012 uPD1990.v
Ken
On 5/22/21 11:22 AM, Rob Messer wrote:
> I have followed this email list for a years and I have
never asked a
> question...but here goes! I am sitting here with my model
100 and I
> had an idea to 3D print a replica case and get my hands on
an LCD and
> mechanical keyboard and try to faithfully reproduce the
Model 100 with
> simple additions. I have enlisted a few friends (we are all
> engineers)... I was wondering of anyone knows of an FPGA
> implementation of the Model 100 hardware? I want to make a
fairly
> faithful reproduction short of using an 80C85.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Robert Messer
> BARA Sweden
>
>
--
Robert Messer
Palisandergatan 13
Bara Sverige 23040
Tel: 01146708901871
www.linkedin.com/in/
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/>robert-messer-a3833b4
--
Robert Messer
Palisandergatan 13
Bara Sverige 23040
Tel: 01146708901871
www.linkedin.com/in/ <http://www.linkedin.com/in/>robert-messer-a3833b4
