New Atari 800XL Revive Machine?

[ojanhk]

Does anyone have more information on this :https://revive-machines.com/index-en.html?fbclid=IwAR1PUIRcE-k4ngmsbOVHEsxFcZMKoL1zfPUveKUMZIHxbWYJECsgGUTPEGo ?

Looks good, but when and how much?

[800_Rocks]

I went to the link and read the teaser info.  The case (a rendering?) looks like the original with all original ports plus a couple USB ports and an HDMI port. It did mention that it is FPGA based. It looks nice but If I get an FPGA based unit it will be a MIST type unit that I can run any core I want on it… any Atari, any Commodore, any game console, etc. 

[Dinadan67]

I wonder if this is based on EclaireXL? Maybe @foft knows.

[foft]

30 minutes ago, Dinadan67 said:

I wonder if this is based on EclaireXL? Maybe @foft knows.

If it is no-one told me. Though the source and v1 schematic are open and on my site, so it’s possible.

Looks like a cool project, I hope it is real!

With an active pbi and cartridge socket it does seem likely to be fpga based rather than software emulation.

[ojanhk]

Yes they say it’s FPGA based. It’s also mentioned « RISC » which is strange.

But clearly with PBI and SIO it looks great, allowing for vintage peripherals and carts. Moreover, it should support Fujinet if SIO is properly implemented. 

[TGB1718]

Would be nice to see the full technical specifications, although it's based on an 800XL

is there any provision to expand the memory (or does it have it already).

 

Is it possible to install some of our nice goodies in it to bring it up to todays expectations 

[irich2]

Did you happen to notice what they didn't say?  They talked about a new motherboard and showed a case to fit it, but they did not mention a new keyboard.  You would think if they were providing a new keyboard as well (say a mechanical keyboard with Cherry-MX compatible switches and custom Atari keycaps) they would have mentioned that.  It makes me wonder if you will have to bring your existing Atari 800XL keyboard to plug into their new motherboard.  Or maybe even bring the entire upper part of the case (with your keyboard attached) to plug into / attach to their bottom part of the case with their custom motherboard.  What do you all think?  Are we going to get a new complete computer, or just the bottom case and motherboard?

[+Allan]

I would be happy with the case and keyboard. Hopefully it's the original size.

[+gnusto]

8 hours ago, irich2 said:

It makes me wonder if you will have to bring your existing Atari 800XL keyboard to plug into their new motherboard.

This would be quite a bit of hassle compared to other machines of this type (remake style). The most probable case is they intend to remake with a modern keyboard, but not go through the effort of strong mechanical switches. This would make it similar to Commodore and the like remakes.

[SegaSnatcher]

I'm extremely interested in this.   The fact it has a functional cart slot and uses RISC + FPGA are good signs.  

[SlagOMatic]

My skepticism is high. The site has literally zero useful information on it, just a handful of exterior-only renders and a lot of buzzwords. It looks all the world like something an Atari fanboy would have created as a pipe dream.

Edited April 16, 2023 by SlagOMatic

[Ricky Spanish]

I bet inside it all modern. An emulator in a 800xl case.

[TGB1718]

5 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

I bet inside it all modern. An emulator in a 800xl case.

Pi Zero 🤣 

Edited April 16, 2023 by TGB1718

[mimo]

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

Pi Zero 🤣 

Is that an FPGA? 🤣

[foft]

1 hour ago, SlagOMatic said:

My skepticism is high. The site has literally zero useful information on it, just a handful of exterior-only renders and a lot of buzzwords. It looks all the world like something an Atari fanboy would have created as a pipe dream.

Is there something like 'companies house' in Poland. Does this company exist? The address seems to be for a technology park.

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

Pi Zero 🤣 

I guess we know it is possible to do that. There are existing projects that bit bang the cartridge port using e.g. STM32F4:

https://github.com/robinhedwards/UnoCart

Also for example:

https://cbm-pi1541.firebaseapp.com/

 

The pi zero has 40 gpio pins. It is possible to toggle these at 50MHz from kernel space. We need more io than this: address bus: 16, data bus: 8, joystick: 10 digital + 4 analog, r/w, phi2 -> already 40 and there are more than this needed for PBI.  So it could be pi zero + a CPLD/small FPGA to do the exact timing and to increase the number of pins.

 

I'd be happier for a pure FPGA solution personally, but a pi zero (or similar) solution would probably be cheaper and work well. The main difficulty would be modifying an emulator to get real cycle-cycle timing.

[TGB1718]

32 minutes ago, mimo said:

Is that an FPGA? 🤣

I know it's not an FPGA , but was thinking that could be "the processor" with an FPGA to emulate the I/O an custom chips

[SlagOMatic]

58 minutes ago, foft said:

Is there something like 'companies house' in Poland. Does this company exist? The address seems to be for a technology park.

There DOES seem to be a "Revive Machines" in Poland but as far as I can tell they (a) don't have a presence in Gdynia and (b) seem to be a manufacturer of internet-enabled sensors. The location is the "Pomeranian Science and Technology Park" which "is the largest hub of organizations operating at the intersection of business, science and technology in Poland". Based on a ~five minute internet hunt the specific address (Aleja Zwycięstwa 96/98) seems to have been used by a number of companies including a biotech firm, a self-driving vehicle company, and a payment processing company.

 

I'm still voting for fanboy piped ream here.

[+Philsan]

Internal electronics are not a problem, but to make the case and the keyboard a huge investment is needed.

 

I hope the dream will come true.

 

[foft]

It seems that mechanical keyboards and keycaps are being made on other threads here now. Not cheap, but achievable.

 

That just leaves 50000 USD + for the injection moulded case... We just need 10 people to put in 5K each, anyone in  ??

Edited April 16, 2023 by foft

[Stefan Both]

Isn't Larek involved in development?

 

Stefan 

[+x=usr(1536)]

22 hours ago, 800_Rocks said:

 The case (a rendering?) looks like the original with all original ports plus a couple USB ports and an HDMI port.

Looking at how the ports are implemented on the cases shown in the renderings, the case would pretty much have to be taken from a new mould.  The USB-C power input is right where the original one was, and the USB controller ports sit in a location that would require cutting of an original case that wouln't match what's being seen in the renders.

 

I wish him luck with the project, but making those cases is not going to be cheap.

[+gnusto]

We're all assuming injection mold because that's what the render would require, but it COULD also in small volumes be a 3D print, that is much messier looking than the images here. Or maybe they ask you to butcher a donor 800xl case (ugh).

But honestly I hope for the best here, I personally would pay a wife-attention-getting amount on a newly molded 800XL case with modern electronics (FPGA, no electrolytic caps, etc) that was compatible with the 8bit cart and PBI ports. With a decent FPGA things like 6402c vs 65816, single versus stereo pokey would just be a run time decision.

 

[Keatah]

7 hours ago, Ricky Spanish said:

I bet inside it all modern. An emulator in a 800xl case.

Emulators are good, with high reliability and all that.

 

Only time emulators suck is when they are used in those mini-machines and real hardware cases/housings like this. Why? Because as emulators evolve and improve their accuracy they will require more horsepower. So you really want a modern i5 or i7 processor. And a complete Windows OS managing it all. A generic MiniPC. No ARM SoC (Shit on a Chip)!

Edited April 16, 2023 by Keatah

[+Philsan]

A lot of people seem interested.

My posts on Atari Scene News Twitter and Mastodon accounts had a lot of likes, positive replies and retweets.

For example my tweet had 34.286 visualizations and 763 clicks on the link revive-machines.com

[tebe]

On 4/16/2023 at 6:15 PM, Stefan Both said:

Isn't Larek involved in development?

 

Stefan