Tiny Cray-1 Courtesy Of An FPGA

September 29, 2010 by 21 Comments

[Chris Fenton] spent a year and a half constructing a 1/10th scale Cray-1 reproduction. The famous supercomputer was meticulously modelled in a field programmable gate array for a “nearly cycle-accurate” reproduction. [Chris’] hardware of choice for the project is a Xilinx Spartan-3E 1600 development board, using 75-80% of the available resources. The finished product runs at 33 MHz and is missing a few functions but it sounds like they don’t affect code execution. We like that he didn’t stop with the processor implementation, but also took the time to produce a case for the development board that looks just like the original.

Unlike the Atari 2600 FPGA project, we’re not quite sure what we’d use this for. But that doesn’t diminish the excellence of his work.

Thinner Client Using STM32 And NTSC Monitor

September 29, 2010 by 30 Comments

[David Cranor], along with [Max Lobovsky’s] help, managed to build a thin client that uses an NTSC television as a monitor for only $6. This is his first foray into the world of ARM architecture and he has vowed to never use an AVR again. The powerful little chip uses timers to manage sync and DMA to transfer the full 480×240 frame buffer to the screen. Overclocked at 80 MHz there’s a lot of potential in this little board and he plans to take on the challenge of a full-color display for his next trick.

Lazarus-64, Not Actually 64 Bit But Still Blows Our Minds

September 29, 2010 by 16 Comments

Lazarus-64, breadboard game system; certainly sounds like something from the 1980s. We were surprised to find out not only the name, but also all the ICs used are only those available from the retro age of 30 years back (Save for the AVR controlling everything, of course). Even more amazing is how it has 256 flicker free color support, while not using NTSC chips. Which Goes to show that even if there are common solutions out there for cheap, building or compiling your own is not necessarily a bad thing or a waste of time.

There is a whole lot more to Lazarus, including double buffering and VMS, but sadly it appears progress has stopped on the Lazarus-64 breadboard game system, with the last update being last year. But we can still bask in the amazing glow that currently is.

Creepy Robot Really Wants Money…

September 29, 2010 by 14 Comments

As technology advances forward so does the numerous ways to beg for money. [Chris Eckert] has developed a robot to do the deed for him.  With an odd  eye mounted on the top of the robot to invoke pity presumably and a tin can out front to collect change from people it may encounter this is quite the hobo robot.  On his build log, you’ll find tons of great pictures of the entire process from start to finish.  With robots sent to beg people for money, it is only a matter of time until the first squeegee robot is cleaning your car at a red light.  Make sure to check out the video after the break.

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yo dog, we heard you liked simulations

16 Bit ALU In Minecraft

September 29, 2010 by 34 Comments

We love games here but we don’t often get a reason to write about them. This, however, is worth mentioning. The indie hit Minecraft is eating the entire internet right now. The game itself is hit and miss amongst our staff, but this project is unanimously accepted as awesome. [Theinternetftw} has created a simulation of the ALU section of a 16bit processor.  He can set it in motion and run around watching as the states change. This is part of an even bigger project to create the entire processor as shown in the book “The Elements of Computer Systems“.

For those that are wondering how long it took him to place all of those pieces, he actually imported most of it from another program. You can get more details on how they pulled this off in this forum thread. Be sure to catch the video after the break.

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Woot Lights And Mice Transplants

September 29, 2010 by 6 Comments

[Nathan Long] sent in two fairly simple mods he’s been working on. The first is the control of Woot-off Lights via LPT port. A computer checks Woot for the Woot-off logo, and if the logo is spotted, on go the lights. It’s really just a twist on the LED/Arduino email message system, but the creativity is nice.

His other modification is the stuffing of a Microsoft Intellimouse inside of a Logitech Wingman. With the goal of giving the old PS/2 mouse USB capabilities and removing the terrible ball. For those that are asking themselves “why bother? Terrible ergonomics, no scroll wheel, etc.” [Nathan] claims it’s for Quake 2 nostalgia, to each their own we suppose.

Launchpad Not Limited To Value Line Chips

September 28, 2010 by 43 Comments

Wanting to use my TI Launchpad as more than just a development board I thought I’d do a few experiments using it as an in-system programmer. After a few tripping points I was able to get it working and then some. It seems that the device is not limited to just the value line of microcontrollers it was intended to support. In the image above I’m using it to program an MSP430F2272 which is a pretty powerful little chip with 32 KB of program space. Click through the break for more information on the setup.

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