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saundby
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Howdy, all!

Post by saundby »

I'm Mark Graybill, new to XMOS. I'd heard of XMOS, but hadn't had time to check it out until I saw that it was part of the new Amiga X1000. Then I decided I should learn more about it, so I've downloaded the tools to my Mac and I'll be playing around with them now.

I'll have more time when I finish work on my other project, an 8085-based handheld system I'm building just for the heck of it. (Well, for fun really.) Occasionally I take time out to update my website with the latest progress on that.

I'm trying very hard at this point to not anticipate exactly what I'm going to do with XMOS yet, I want to at least get through some tutorials and things before I start moving my brain in that direction. Basically I want to learn what it does well and how before I start trying to pin applications on it. Looking forward to getting my feet under me with the new tech, I played with Transputers some a long time ago (over 25 years now, hard to believe), thought it was extremely cool but couldn't get any traction getting Transputers applied in my professional work. It's always easier to spend time on something when someone pays you to do it. Maybe I can change that with the XMOS chips. :D

-Mark


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Post by Heater »

Hi Saundby,

Welcome to the forum.

Good to see a fellow 8085 enthusiast here. Many of hours of my hobby time have gone into creating a 8080/8085 emulator in assembler for the Parallax Inc Propeller micro-controller. With the original aim of creating an Altair computer lookalike that will run CP/M from SD cards. The thing now runs CP/M but I have yet to build a nice Altair front panel for it.

That 8080 emulator grew up to be a full Z80 emulation. There are some lengthy threads about these projects here:

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=101495
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=110804

I have yet to find time for any XMOS projects but I think getting CP/M running on an XMOS is in my future as a learning exercise.
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saundby
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Post by saundby »

Very nice! I'll have to read more of your threads later, I especially like:
Anyway it should be in every 'Software Engineering 101' course to identify your primitive operations first and then design the code to use them.
The resources on the XMOS chips would seem to make them excellent candidates for emulation of a CP/M system with a full front panel. Plenty of I/Os, fewer memory constraints than the Propellor. I don't know the Propellor in enough detail to know how its response to external stimuli works, but the XCOREs seem like they should respond as well as dedicated logic. That's pretty useful for retro-emulations.

One idea that I was considering was emulating unobtanium old support chips, particularly video chips. I still have a lot to learn about XMOS, so we'll see. Another idea was emulations with extensions that never appeared historically. E.g. an NSC800 (sort of an 8085/Z-80 crossbreed) with SID and SOD as well as DIV and MULT (why not? ;) ).
vanjast
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Post by vanjast »

Hi saundby
I suppose you were also 'let down' by the 'T9000 crash'
If only that had seen the light of day... we'd be living in a different world :mrgreen:
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russf
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Post by russf »

vanjast wrote:... the 'T9000 crash'
If only that had seen the light of day... we'd be living in a different world :mrgreen:
I remember that....

I as at Transputing 91... in Sunnyvale... Such excitement...

--r
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