amiga-news.de - individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby is available

12.Dec.2005
Jens Schönfeld (ANF)

individual Computers: 8 Bit Baby is available
The product "8 Bit Baby", that was already announced in forums and with flyers, is finally available! It's an experimenting-board for hobbyists who want to develop hardware on their own. As the name already suggests, the board aims at users of the popular 8-bit computers of the 80s. These computers all have expansion ports that carry all important signals. Unfortunately, most hobbyists do not have the chance to make their own expansions, because experimenting boards normally do not have slot-connectors.

This problem is now solved with the "8 Bit Baby". The board has a special connector for a computer on each of the four sides:

for C64: 44-pin, raster 2,54mm
for VIC-20: 44-pin, raster 3,96mm
for C16/C116/plus-4: 50-pin, raster 2,0mm
for Apple II: 50-pin, raster 2,54mm

The board is prepared for a programmable logic chip by Altera in order to bring hardware development up-to-date. The EPM3064 can replace many TTL-chips with it's 64 macrocells and up to 34 IO-pins. TTL-chips were used on a regular basis for hardware-expansions in the 80s. The Altera chip can be programmed without expensive programming equipment, you just need a so-called JTAG-cable for the parallel port. The development software "Quartus" can be downloaded at no cost from www.altera.com. If you do not want to solder the JTAG-cable on your own, you can buy the "multivolt" version from us for 12,- EUR each.

Axel Muhr has opened the website www.8BitBaby.de for all interested people. It's the perfect place to discuss the "nuts and bolts" of your hardware projects! We will of course publish example circuits on that site, and hope for your participation!

Prices:
8 Bit Baby board (1 pc.): 7,90 EUR
8 Bit Baby board (4 pcs. and up): 6,90 EUR
(prices include 16% VAT where applicable)

We'll offer a parts kit shortly that includes all necessary parts to build the Altera PLD circuit. It's mostly standard-parts, except for the 3,3V voltage regulator that your local electronics store might not carry. Since this part might be hard to get, it's included with every 8 Bit Baby that's ordered before the end of the year!

Fortunately, this product is not affected by the EU laws and the consequences that we announced on november 24th, because the EU-directive does not apply to single parts. There's more products in our portfolio that are not affected, these can still be sold within the EU:

Deathbed Vigil DVD, signed by Dave Haynie
5,25 inch disks double-sided, single-density
cartridge cases for C64-cartridges
double-CD Commodore Billboard and Funet archive

(ps)

[News message: 12. Dec. 2005, 00:37] [Comments: 0]
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