Hacker News Reader

toptensoftwareon Why I’m writing a Windows 3 Emulator

Are you sure about that - I didn't think Wine had a 16-bit emulation so how does it work?

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Nice. For me it was my grandfather. I clearly remember taking the train trip with him over to Waitara to pick up our Microbee.

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Read -> Experiment -> Fail.

Repeat until Read -> Experiment -> Success.

They say experience is what you get when the unexpected happens... so I guess it's the Fail step that's important.

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

For anyone feel nostalgic about Microbee, check out:

1. The brand new Microbee Premium Plus Kit (sold out but very cool) http://www.microbeetechnology.com.au/premiumpluskit.htm and 2. The Microbee Software Preservation Project (MSPP) http://www.microbee-mspp.org.au/

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Not at the moment, I want to finish off/clean up a few things first. Yes, there was a Swedish version of the Microbee and they were popular with schools here in Australia so I'm not surprised to hear you had them in Swedish schools too.

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

I couldn't agree more.

As a software developer I've always had a vague understanding of how computer hardware works, but after building fpgabee I have much deeper understanding. eg 1: I always knew what a VGA controller did, but had know idea how. Now that I've actually built one (albeit in code) it's pretty clear to me now. eg 2: I never really understood why hardware can't be just clocked to higher and higher frequencies... but now I totally get it.

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Thanks!

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Not at the moment, but I'll probably add it at some point.

toptensoftwareon An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

Interesting idea! Though as I understand it, the limiting factor atm would be that FPGA cores are considerably slower than real silicon. So even if you had a huge FPGA, loading an identical circuit to a modern processor would not be anywhere near as fast.