There's a trend in other vintage scenes to interface a Raspberry Pi or some such directly with the computer bus to allow emulation of things like sound cards etc.What do people think about doing something like that for the NeXT?
That will be interesting, but which functionality would you like to have with the RPi, emulate NeXTstep/OpenStep to connect via the bus to the original Hw?
or to do something more fancy, like video compression for the cube?
I was thinking more for emulating things like a Dimension etc. but it would open up the bus to other things as well given that the NeXT is a kind of multi-computer architecture.
Here's an example for the Amiga, The PiStorm, I don't own one but it replaces the 8Mhz 68000CPU with a emulated 680x0 cpu with FAST RAM.
The Amiga has two types of RAM, CHIP RAM which the custom (AUDIO, Graphics, Floppy, Serial, DISK...) Chips can access and slows down the 68K speed and FAST RAM which the cpu can access at FULL speed.
I don't own one yet as my 68030@28Mhz and 68EC020FG25 @28Mhz with 4MB Fast RAM for my A1200 is good enough for me, which is why I won't buy a 68060 as it's best to leave them for the demo (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTK_lG8zPfY) coders :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTK_lG8zPfY Also by putting the IDE hardware on the 680x0 Accelerator you get faster read/write speeds to the HDD.
This mass produced hardware at cheap open hardware at low price really is great.
If only Apple would release a Pi knock off with NS3.3 developer on Arm Hardware for under $10 :'(. Come on Woz
I saw something similar for PC as well: allowed emulation of sandblaster cards etc. That was what inspired the thought... and it might be cool to have a board that would allow emulation of a Dimension with an HDMI port on it :)
Has anyone found a supply for the cube connector AMP 531797-1? I was thinking of making some breakout boards for the NeXT bus.
Quote from: gtnicol on November 25, 2023, 02:05:27 PMHas anyone found a supply for the cube connector AMP 531797-1?
The Cube uses regular DIN 41612/IEC 60603-2 3-row/96-pin connectors (female connector on the boards, male on the backplane) which are available from a number of manufacturers, e.g. this one from mouser for about $7 (
https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AIM-Cambridge-Cinch-Connectivity-Solutions/DIN96SBRS2.8?qs=ulEaXIWI0c%2FSakpD5Uj8OA%3D%3D&_gl=1*d2cdpv*_ga*dW5kZWZpbmVk*_ga_15W4STQT4T*dW5kZWZpbmVk*_ga_1KQLCYKRX3*dW5kZWZpbmVk) (I hope that link works for you - if not, the mouser article number is 601-DIN96SBRS28).
I remember seeing a picture of a NeXT cube development board once. Does anyone have a photo of it they can post?
Thanks. That's the one!
Speaking of Raspberry Pi, this might just work for us , loading a Raspberry Pi running Linux or Pi os12 on a cube into a expansion port , look what it can do lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MjZdKtv9ak . In theory we would run an old web browser in NeXTSTEP . I was talking with someone that used to run Explorer or Netscape under something like X Window on NeXT hardware. The software in the link is hosted on the Raspberry Pi connected to the web , then Browservice listens for your web browser via static IP 192.168.1.5 subnetmask 255.255.255.0 and port 80:80 , so when you click a link on the NeXT Browser in theory , it finds it on the linux browser RP ten sends the compressed files as in rendered web page back to your NeXT giving the illusion of modern web browsing. It works on Windows going back to 3.11 lol There is also a version WRP , I started a new thread but this is exciting because having access to the modern web on an original NeXT box would be cool lol
Quote from: gtnicol on December 02, 2023, 07:31:35 PMIs anyone interesting in helping to get some more of these board made:
NBIC Prototype Board (http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/NeXTbus-NBIC/Fab_NBIC_Bread_Board.pdf)
You don't have to ask me twice, this might get really cool actually! I wonder if NeXT had any demo projects from back in the day.
If we have the boards then creating NeXT projects obviously becomes much easier to start, it would be neat if functional DIY projects manifest for example Brian Archer's Load board comes to mind . A NeXT heath kit :)
I was also thinking that we might be able to develop the software for a board in previous, given that it emulates the bus etc. That would simplify development a fair bit.
Quote from: gtnicol on December 03, 2023, 11:08:09 AMI was also thinking that we might be able to develop the software for a board in previous, given that it emulates the bus etc. That would simplify development a fair bit.
One can also include Verilog code in C-based emulations, so we could develop hardware for the board on gate-level or even an FPGA solution.
Some example code that uses a 68000 emulation (taken from Hampa Hug's PCE) and wraps it in a Verilog interface was written by Benjamin Herrenschmidt:
http://gate.crashing.org/~benh/m68k-vpi-0.1.tar.bz2 (
http://gate.crashing.org/~benh/m68k-vpi-0.1.tar.bz2)
Something similar should be possible for Previous, but the resulting emulation will probably be rather slow, since Verilog code converted to C isn't exactly high performing...
Quote from: gtnicol on December 02, 2023, 07:31:35 PMIs anyone interesting in helping to get some more of these board made:
NBIC Prototype Board (http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/NeXTbus-NBIC/Fab_NBIC_Bread_Board.pdf)
It looks like two different versions of a NeXTbus prototype board exist.
The pictures I linked show two different versions - the one for which you posted the link to Fab_NBIC_Bread_Board.pdf (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/NeXTbus-NBIC/Fab_NBIC_Bread_Board.pdf) seems to use a single 15x15 grid (144 pin) pin PGA chip (probably the NBIC, see the NBIC specs, p. 7-1 (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/NeXTbus-NBIC/NextBus_Interface_Chip_Specification.pdf)), whereas this board (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Images/Rare_NeXT_Hardware/NeXTcube/Expansion_Board_Prototype/CIMG0414.JPG) provides socket for two 84-pin ICs (probably PLCC sockets?).
It seems we had a discussion about building a prototype board here 10 years ago (
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3311), but I had completely forgotten about that...
Yes. I forgot about it too. I think it might be worth looking at getting some prototyping boards made - maybe do some PCB designs and get some made. I was thinking we might be able to create something that identifies as a Dimension but which doesn't need an i860 and which can output to HDMI, for example, if we have these boards. Previous might be a good way to prototype the software side.
Hi Rob, i am currently redrawing this prototype board under kicad. I already created the NBIC chip, reading as much as documentation as I find to make the correct connections...
I will open a GitHub space as soon as I am more advanced with it, if someone is interested contact me...
I can't wait to see that drill file :o
If you want github assistance let me know.
