Moving AGAT-7 retro-computer project to the “Retrobyte” platform
As you may remember, I’ve designed a universal platform for building retro-computers, “Retrobyte”. I successfully tested it by creating the “Mikro-80” computer a few months ago, and now I’m working on adapting my other retro-computer project “AGAT-7”, to this platform.
“AGAT-7” requires more functionality than “Retrobyte” has, so I’ve built an extension board for it which has sockets for a 6502 CPU, an original keyboard and joysticks, and an extension slot for an original “Agat” extension card (e.g. serial-parallel interface card). It also has a socket to connect a floppy drive or its emulator on SD cards (e.g. HxC).
Here is the schematic of the board:
And here is its photo:
It has the same size as the “Retrobyte” board (10 x 10 cm). This is how they look together assembled:
Compared to my initial “AGAT-7” project, it will have some additional features:
- Exact simulation of all timings of the original computer, including interrupts. It will help to display screens with combined graphics modes correctly.
- VGA output will be built via frame buffer to preserve original timings. The SDRAM controller has to be modified, too, to accommodate it.
- It adds an “AGAT-9” computer replica to the same platform to make a 2-in-1 computer that can switch between them.
I’m going to use Twitter to provide further updates on the project, so please follow me there if you are interested in its progress:
