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Portland Atari Club Retro Computer Projects IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Portland Atari Club Retro Computer Projects Joe Decuir IEEE Fellow Region 6 Secretary CES Board of Governors GHTC 2016 chair IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Agenda How I prepared for this career? What I know about? Retro computer projects: – A book to write – A mini-PCS to design – Emulator with Bluetooth-connected controllers My own inventory Q&A Resources 2 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society How I got ready? What do I know about? IEEE Consumer Electronics Society How I got here? Luck: son of another Berkeley engineer Skill and persistence • Learned engineering, pre-med and cooperative resourcefulness at Berkeley • 220 quarter units for BS; 50 more for MS • Worked my way through school • Chose jobs that would teach me a lot • Prime example: Atari (next slide) 4 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society How I got the job at Atari? Curiosity: I had studied microprocessors at Berkeley. I had a charter subscription to Byte Magazine. I was following new chips I had educated myself on the MOS 6502 When I lost my medical research job, a friend pointed me to friends at Atari. I passed the technical interview. I passed the game playing interview (TANK) I choose the job because it would teach me a lot of new skills, like custom chip design 5 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Atari Inc: Business is Fun; Joe at Atari 6 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Career Highlights Shipping products: – Atari 2600: 1st home video game console – Atari 800: personal computer system – Amiga 1000 system: 1st multimedia PC – Evercom 12: 1st half-card PC modem – Everfax 24/96: 1st PC FAX-modem – Windows 95: bundle PC FAX support – Windows 2000: modems, broadband, WiFi & cell phones Completing useful standards: – Data modems: ITU V.32bis (14.4k), V.34 (33.6k) & V.90 (56k) – Fax modems: ITU T.31 & T.32 – 2G digital cellular data: GSM 7.07, TIA IS-99 & IS-135 – USB: Communication Class Driver and related specifications – Ultra Wideband radios: WiMedia/Ecma-368 – Next generation of Bluetooth: Core v3.0, v4.0, v4.1 & v4.2 Patents – 13 so far, mostly expired, 1 granted in April, 1 still pending Honor: became an IEEE Fellow for work at Atari and Amiga 7 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Retro Computer Project 1: Finish writing “Encore: Atari’s Second System” IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Book on Atari Computers I worked on three retro computers: 1. Atari Video Computer System (aka 2600) – Book about it: Racing the Beam, MIT Press 2. Atari Personal Computer System (400, 800, XL, XE) – Book in preparation: Encore: Atari’s Second System 3. Amiga Personal Computer (1000, etc) – Book about it: The Future Was Here, MIT Press “Encore” would be a three part story: 1. From Atari VCS lessons to completed Atari PCS design 2. Applications: all the applications software, how to write games and productivity applications 3. Product history: Atari Inc products, Atari Corp products, ongoing support (e.g AtariAge, AtariMax, Lotharek) 9 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Racing the Beam, The Future Was Here 10 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Atari VCS block diagram 11 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Insert Atari PCS block diagram 12 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Simplified Amiga System ASIC Architecture The AGNUS chip can move data from memory to other chips 13 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Book 1: be a historian I have written about 10,000 words so far. – Plus lots of photos and diagrams MIT Press editors suggest get historian help. – I am teaming up with Marty Goldberg Marty and Curt Vendel have organized and maintain an Atari Museum They wrote a book: “Atari, Inc: Business is Fun” – the definitive social history of Atari They are working on: “Atari Corp: Business is War” – about Atari with the Tramiel clan 14 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society People to interview – in contact Doug Neubauer, POKEY & Star Raiders Ron Milner, system hardware concepts Steve Mayer, system software concepts Al Miller, Atari BIOS Paul Laughton, Atari Basic Liza Loop, education applications Bob Frankston, VisiCalc Larry Wagner, software team Chris Crawford, games & developer support Ihor Wolosenko, Synapse Software Activision and Imagic game developers 15 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society People to find to interview George McLeod – CTIA and GTIA Francois Michel – ANTIC Harry Stewart, Atari BIOS Howard Bornstein, Atari BIOS, etc Scott Scheiman, SIO, 850 William Robinson, Atariwriter Bill Wilkinson, OSS and Action 16 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Book 2: develop software Develop demos of various features: – hardware scrolling – lots of players at once Port some simple games: – E.g. 4 player Tank from Combat Port Atari VCS Adventure – Help from Warren Robinette Post source code and playable object on a web site – encourage open source development 17 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Retro Computer Project 2: “mini-PCS” IEEE Consumer Electronics Society New implementations There are three Atari VCS implementations: 1. PC emulator “Stella” 2. Flashback 2.0: based on FPGA 3. Flashback 5.0: based on emulation There is an Atari PCS PC SW emulation – I have FPGA descriptions of the chips – It might be able to run on the MIST platform There are two Amiga implementations: 1. PC SW emulator 2. Open source ‘Minimig’, Amiga 500 MIST 19 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society What could be in a ‘miniPCS’? Minimum: – run Atari PCS software – At least two game controller ports – SIO connector – Video out: RCA video (like Flashbacks) Interesting options: – SD drive emulation, on extended Atari BIOS – USB, on extended Atari BIOS – WiFi networking – Bluetooth HID IO 20 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Further options 80 column video Higher resolution video Better audio Why not? I have ordered an Amiga 500 MIST FPGA It has all these features 21 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Engineering work Assemble specifications Collect the FPGA Verilog code for the major components: 6502, ANTIC, GTIA, POKEY, PIA, etc Collect the Verilog for the circuit board Add options: SD disk, USB Determine if this can all be done on the MIST platform – Curt Vendel thinks it can – Maybe: collaborate with Lotharek 22 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Marketing question: who cares? My motivation is twofold: – It would be fun – I need to learn Verilog anyway, because I expect to have to teach it. Would the retro community be interested in this design? – Would they play games? – Would they use them to write new games? 23 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Retro Computer Projects 3: Bluetooth HID game controller ports IEEE Consumer Electronics Society The concept: PCS emulation There are “Stella” emulators for various operating systems. I have a pair of USB-connected “2600Daptors” to connect Atari controllers – Rumor has it Bluetooth-connected game controller adaptors exist, too. There is at least one Atari ‘Colleen’ emulator Connect an iOS or Android PCS emulator to a Bluetooth-connected adaptor. Question: does Flashback 5.0 do this now? 25 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Problem: managing game IP The patents on the hardware have all expired The copyrights on the games last generations Perhaps a solution for people who own the games in cartridge form: create a cartridge port, to capture the playable object code – A USB-connected or Bluetooth-connected – Atari VCS cartridge port – Atari PCS cartridge port 26 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Portfolio Hardware Collection: Atari VCS, Atari PCS and Amiga IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Atari VCS hardware Atari VCS ‘heavy sixers’ (3) Atari 2600 ‘mini’ Harmony SD to VCS cartridge Flashback 2.0: FPGA + 40 games Flashback 5.0: SW emulation + 92 games Flashback 2.0: original FPGA prototype Computer Magic “MagiCard” – Plugs into a VCS; uses keyboard controllers – Simple game design program and cassette interface 28 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society 29 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society 30 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Atari PCS hardware Atari 400 w/48K MPP 1150 print port Atari 800 (3) Atari Peripheral Atari 600XL Emulator – serial Atari 800XL Atari Peripheral Atari 130XE Emulator – USB Atari 410 tape AtariMax MyIDE CF Atari 810 diskette AtariMax 8MB Flash Atari 1050 diskette (2) AtariMax USB cart Atari 827 printer Lotharek SIO2SD Atari 850 ports Atari 5200 31 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Insert photo of Atari 800XL setup 32 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society SIO2SD & AtariMax devices 33 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Amiga Hardware Amiga 500 Amiga 2000 (3) with internal HD 68030 accelerator cards for A2000 (2) Amiga 500 MIST FPGA (on order) 34 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Amiga 500 MIST FPGA Reimplementation of Amiga 500 SD card in place of FD; adds USB ports http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96 35 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Resources & contact information IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Question break 37 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Good Books and Articles “Atari Inc: Business is Fun”, Goldberg & Vendel, Syzygy Press “Racing the Beam”, Montfort & Bogost, MIT Press “The Future was Here”, Maher, MIT Press De Re Atari, Crawford, Atari Program Exchange Mapping the Atari, Chadwick, Compute Books Annotated Adventure, Warren Robinette (in preparation) Game On!, IEEE CES Magazine, July 2015 Encore, IEEE CES Magazine, January 2016 Amiga Hardware, IEEE CES Magazine, Oct 2016 Microprocessor design case history: Atari’s Video Computer, Perry & Wallich, IEEE Spectrum, March 1983 Amiga, the Computer that Would not Die, Wallich, IEEE Spectrum, March 2001 38 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society My contact information Joe Decuir Issaquah, WA USA IEEE: [email protected] IEEE Region 6: Secretary Global Humanitarian Technology Conference: chair IEEE Consumer Electronics Society: • Member: Board of Governors • Distinguished Lecturer Work: sabbatical; applied to teach EE/CS at University of Washington Fun: bassist in a rock band “Game of Tones” 39 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Jay Miner, In Memoriam 40.
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