Prettige Kerst, Merry X-Mas, of course in style, by using a Xilinx FPGA to control a cheap 64x32 RGB LED matrix display. I wrote a small program in VHDL that shift out a image to the RGB module and takes care of everything. After building it with Xilinx Vivado the resulting schematic looks like this; Of course if this is not an example of how to do things for a real project, first of all the LED module lacks features like PWM control, current correction, over temperature protection, and simply the needed brightness compared to professional displays that are for example produced by my one of my clients. [Read More]

After, Fixing the mainboard Refurbishing the PSU Installing the SCSI2SD Installing the GoTek drive Finally done! Well almost, because there where some small problems. First of all, and I wonder why I didn’t notice that before, the bottom of the case was badly warped. So I had to take everything out again and bend the case into a bit more acceptable shape. And of course rebuild the whole thing again. After this “mechanical” problem, it was time to install the software. [Read More]

After the SCSI HD conversion from a real HD to a SD-Card, it is time to add a way to easily use floppy images by adding a GoTek floppy emulator. The GoTek case is a lot smaller than the 3.5" floppy opening, some kind of frame is needed. Since the previous owner already drilled some holes in the slot plate I used that as a frame for the GoTek. I simply cut out the center and super glued the frame to the GoTek case. [Read More]

After fixing the Amiga 2000 motherboard and the refurbishing the PSU I upgraded the HD from a real SCSI-drive to a SD-Card via a SCSI2SD. Together with my brother in law and his company Art and Tech VoF we created a 3D printed bracket that makes it possible to attach the SCSI2SD onto the Amiga SCSI controller card where the HD used to be. We also created a new slot plate that make it possible to access the SD-card and USB port from the back of the Amiga. [Read More]

The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID (Sound Interface Device) is the almost 40 year old sound chip that was used in the famous Commodore 64. It uses a 5bit address / 8bit data synchronous bus with a chip select, rw, and clock signal. Since the chip uses the 1MHz (well not exactly 1MHz as I’ll explain later) clock signal also to generate all the audio frequencies, so it is important that the clock signal is stable, even though the read/write access would work fine with a unstable clock as long as the signal setup times are correct. [Read More]

To understand what this is about you absolutely should watch Dylan Beattie’s brilliant presentation about The Art of Code. Now you know Rockstar is a computer programming language designed for creating programs that are also hair metal power ballads. The famous Fizzbuzz program looks like this. Midnight takes your heart and your soul While your heart is as high as your soul Put your heart without your soul into your heart Give back your heart Desire is a lovestruck ladykiller My world is nothing Fire is ice Hate is water Until my world is Desire, Build my world up If Midnight taking my world, Fire is nothing and Midnight taking my world, Hate is nothing Shout "FizzBuzz! [Read More]

After fixing the Amiga 2000 motherboard it was time to cleanup the power supply. I preemptively wanted to remove all the electrolytic capacitors so I ordered some new ones. Since the power supply is just a single sided PCB, getting the old capacitors out and soldering the new capacitors in would be relatively easy. But this model (later versions don’t seem to have it) has a little daughter PCB that kind of block access and itself also had two capacitors on it that I also wanted to replace. [Read More]

A while back I bought a non-working Amiga 2000 that, according the seller, only displayed a white screen. In the 80’s and early 90’s I only had an Amiga 500, so I thought it would be fun to now get a working Amiga 2000, and restoring one would be a nice X-mas holiday project. Dealing with the Amiga Killer One of the main Amiga 2000 killers is the battery, after 30 plus years they tend to leak and in the worst case can corrode away half the PCB. [Read More]