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Table of Contents
Introduction
I'm mainly interested in 68K family of processors. I worked with 68K processors during the early phase of my professional career for embedded applications, but I am unfamiliar with how 68K were used in desktop applications. I like to explore the various uses of 68K in the general desktop usage which means interface with disk, keyboard, ethernet, USB, video and operating systems.
During the recession of 2007/2008 I had many opportunities to collect 68K components, memories, and peripherals at bargain basement prices mostly on eBay and some on local electronic auctions. I purchased them as memorabilia and to tinkering with during my retirement. I'm retired now and this is a record of my tinkering.
The first step is put together a tinkering set of tools, then the pathfinder projects to exercise these tools, and finally explore the uses of 68K in the general desktop environments.
68030 Projects
Tiny030
Tiny030 is described at end of the page. It will be moved to here later on.
CB030
CB030 is follow-on to Tiny030; it'll have more memory, compact flash mass storage, I/O expansion, and self-programming features.
P90CE201 Projects
P90CE201 is derived from 68000 but with integrated I/O that includes two I2C buses. It is not well known and I heard about it from a Facebook posting and bought a few parts from eBay. I plan to design a motherboard with it and one for Arduino Mega enclosure. First thing is a quick prototype to check out its capabilities.
X688
X688 is quick prototype board to check out the P90CE201 I purchased from eBay.
P90MB
P90MB is a motherboard based on P90CE201 with 3 RC2014-like expansion slots.
Kuno
68Kuno (Kuno) is P90CE201 SBC designed for Arduino Mega enclosure
SBC for RC2014
I stumbled across the RC2014 community in early 2018. I like the simple backplane and large collection of I/O modules. The single inline connector can also plug into a solderless breadboard for prototyping experiments.
Z280RC
Z280RC is a CP/M-ready SBC Z280 designed to plug into the RC2014 and interface to its many I/O modules.
ZZ80RC
ZZ80RC is a CP/M2.2-ready SBC based on Z280 processor configured to operate in the Z80-bus compatible mode. It is designed to plug into the RC2014 bus.
ZZ80RC-CF is an enhanced version of ZZ80RC with a CF flash interface. Like ZZ80RC, it is in all through-hole technology in standard RC2014 format of 100mm x 50mm.
ZZ80MB
A Z280-based motherboard with expansion slots. The basic design is based on ZZ80RC-CF
Z80SBCRC
Z80 single board computer for RC2014 is in the standard RC2014 format of 100mm x 50mm. It is a ROM-less implementation that operates at 20MHz. It also has a compact flash interface.
Z80SBC64
Z80SBC64 is a hobbyist friendly version of Z80SBCRC. All components are in through-hole technology and remain in the standard 100mm x 50mm board size.
Z80MB64
A mother board based on Z80SBC64 with 3 RC2014 expansion connectors.
G8PP
Generic 8-bit processors prototype board is a hybrid board with printed wirings and prototype area to accommodate different 8-bit, 5V processors of 1970's and 1980's. G8PP in baseline configuration serves the function of clock, paged memory, compact flash, and serial port for RC2014, resulting in a CP/M capable RC2014 system with the addition of the Z80 CPU board.
G8PP Base (need better name) is a G8PP in baseline configuration plus a processor board on a RC2014 backplane. The control signals of RC2014 (nM1, nMREQ, nRD, nWR, nIORQ) as well as the 4 spare signals are reassigned depending on the targeted processor. No hardware changes are required when change to a different processor board, but the CPLD must be reconfigured and new processor software loaded.
- G8PP + 1802
- G8PP + 32008
T68KRC
T68KRC is Tiny68K that plugs into the RC2014 backplane and interface to its many I/O modules.
Simple80
A simple traditional SBC design with 3 RC2014 expansion connectors but without glue logic.
Simple80 Rev 1. The compact flash interface is on board. It is software compatible with original Simple80
K80
A traditional SBC design using a KIO (Z84C9012) and over-clocked to 22MHz. It also has 2 RC2014 expansion connectors.
Micro80
A traditional Z80 SBC design using Z84C15. It also has 3 RC2014 expansion connectors
RC2014 Modules
These are modules for the classical RC2014 backplane
QuadSer
Four serial ports with 128-byte deep FIFO each for RC2014
VGARC
A text-based VGA display based on dual port RAM
KIORC
A RC2014 module based on KIO, Z84C90
LED Display
A RC2014 module with 6 hex displays made of individual LED
Improved 512K RAM/ROM
A RC2014 module with 512K RAM, 512K flash, and CPLD
ProtoRC
ProtoRC is a 100mm x 100mm prototype board. It centered around an Altera EPM7128 CPLD which interface RC2014 signals on one side and 0.1“ grid array experiment area on the other side.
- ProtoLCD is prototype of 4-line LCD display on a ProtoRC board.
- ProtoSIO2 is prototype of Zilog SIO/2 serial device on a ProtoRC board
- ProtoSound is prototype of AY2149F on a ProtoRC board.
ProtoRC1 is a 100mm x 75mm prototype board. It centered around an Altera EPM7128S CPLD. There are more dedicated 7-segment displays and compact flash interface. The prototype area is limited to one row of 300-mil or 600-mil DIPs.
- ProtoCF is a 8-bit compact flash interface on ProtoRC1 board
- ProtoSD is a SD card interface on ProtoRC1 board
ProtoRC2 is very similar to ProtoRC1 with the addition of a connector for 4×20 LCD character display.
ProtoRC3 uses through-hole components only. The CPLD is Altera EPM7064S in 44-pin PLCC package socketed in a through-hole PLCC socket.
RC2014 SBC for Arduino Mega Enclosure
MicroZ
MicroZ is the Micro80 above but designed for the acrylic Arduino Mega enclosure
Zuno
Zuno is Z80SBC64 designed for the acrylic Arduino Mega enclosure
RC2014 Modifications and Upgrades
RC2014 Mini Upgrade to CP/M
Step-by-step instruction to upgrade RC2014 Mini to run CP/M2.2
Pathfinder Projects
I was shocked to find out how cheaply pc boards can be fabricated, especially in the 100mm x 100mm format. This capability encourages modular construction in the size of 100mm x 100mm format and the 80-20 prototyping approach of 80% pc board and 20% hand wiring. Unfortunately, most of the board shops are in China, so there are greater cost in shipping and turn-around time. I can amortize the cost and better use the waiting time by working on multiple projects at the same time. The “Tinyxxx” naming convention denotes the 100mm x 100mm format (Tiny) followed by the name of processors, e.g. Tiny030 is the MC68030 pathfinder in 100mm x 100mm format. For ease of construction, I prefer through-hole components over surface-mount components and I'll stay with the 5V components for now.
Tiny302
The 68302 is one of the early 68000-based MPU of the 683xx family. The availability of System Integration Module and abundance of I/O devices make it easy to interface thus it is the first path finder project.
Tiny302 Prototype
Tiny302 pcb
Tiny302 software
Tiny302 construction log
Tiny020
MC68020 is arguably the most perfectly crafted 32-bit CPU. The dynamic bus sizing makes it easy to interface with 8-bit wide memories and peripheral; low power consumption means external heat sink is not necessary; abundance of registers and orthogonal instruction set make writing assembly level language easy; vector base register allows relocation of the exception tables; coprocessor architecture for expanded features notably the floating point and memory management; and it is widely used so parts & tools are readily (cheaply) available. I want to build Tiny020 in the “retro” style which means using through-hole TTL glue logics.
Tiny020 prototype
Tiny020 software
Tiny020 pc board
Tiny020 construction log
Tiny030
MC68030 is a mc68020 with integrated memory management unit plus data cache. I want to do Tiny030 for 3 reasons: I stumbled across a box of new, never opened, wrongly-labelled 68030 tucked away in the garage. I believe it was a part of large crate I successfully bidded on in a local auction and it may well be the most valuable item in that lot sitting there unopened for 10 years! I also want to use the large pile of 4/8/16 megabyte SIMM72 memory modules, and I want to check out Altera's tools by using the EPM7128 CPLD as the glue logic. Since I'm already successful with Tiny020, I'll use the 80-20 pcb-handwiring approach.
Tiny030 schematic
Altera 7128 CPLD schematic, Quartus design files
Tiny030 pc board
Tiny030 monitor debugger
Tiny040
MC68040 is effectively the end of line for the 68K family. There is 68060, but it was not widely used and part is hard-to-find and expensive. I may work on a 68060 later, but not as a path finder project. The first concern with 68040 is power management. It is a power hog and heat sink design is essential–not ideal in the prototype development environment. 68040 does not have dynamic bus sizing, so all executable memory MUST be 32-bit wide. An external dynamic bus sizer can be used, but there is no space for it in the Tiny format. I'm better off using 4x 8-bit flash for boot ROM and SIMM72 for RAM.
Tiny040 schematic
Tiny68K
Explore the concept of $10 68K initially proposed here: https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=152&goto=2253&#msg_2253
Tiny68K design
Tiny68K Software
Tiny68K pc board
Tiny68K construction log
TinyZ280
Prototype Z280 board in 100mm X 100mm format
Miscellaneous Projects
Soldering SMT components
Repurpose the ADC SPX-MPU board–MC68302 single board computer
CP/M 68K on the MPU302, a repurposed ADC SPX-MPU board