Atari Coldfire Project
The Atari Coldfire Project (ACP) is a volunteer project that has created a modern Atari ST computer clone called the FireBee.[3][4] Reason for the project
The 16- and 32-bit Atari ST microcomputers were a popular line of home computers in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, to which the mostly- or semi-compatible Atari TT and Falcon computers were added in the early nineties. However, in 1993, Atari largely withdrew from the computer market, and in 1995-1996, when Atari merged with JTS, the company withdrew completely and dropped all of its support for the platform. The systems Atari had built got increasingly left behind as newer and faster systems came out for other platforms. A hard core of dedicated users still wanted more processing power to develop more advanced applications for their preferred platform's Atari TOS operating system. This demand paved the way for a number of "clone" machines, such as the 68040-based Milan and the 68060-based Hades, both of which were considerably more powerful than even the 68030-based TT and Falcon, as well as the 68000-based ST/STe computers. These machines supported ISA and PCI buses, which made use of network and graphics cards designed for the PC possible (something no original Atari machines could do). The machines also supported tower cases, making it possible to use internal CD drives. A new clone named Phenix never made it to market in final form.[5] However, the powerful rev. 6 68060 CPU it was to use did make it into a new accelerator board for the Falcon, the CT60/CT63 series, which meant that, for the first time, the Atari platform had a CPU rated at over 100 MHz. The use of a high-speed bus and PC133 RAM also accounted for a big performance improvement and significantly increased the Falcon's on-board memory limit from 14 MiB to 512 MiB with a CT60. These systems were not mass-produced and became hard to find. While the CT60/CT63 needed a Falcon "donor" system, and was still not as powerful as the ACP system, the ACP's FireBee used a completely new design, moving away from 68K CPUs to the newer ColdFire class, more powerful than even the fastest 68K chips while still having a largely similar (but not completely compatible) instruction set. It also allowed for the integration of many I/O ports that hitherto were only available through extensive hardware modification on the Atari platform. Specifications
The specifications for the ACP have changed considerably over time, in response to advancing technology and price considerations. However, it seems the following will be in the final design according to former Atari Coldfire Project homepage:[6]
Operating systemsOn the 8 MB ROM, FireBee devices have the following pre-installed software:
There's a ready to use FreeMiNT and GUI environment setup with applications ported to work on ColdFire which can be ordered on CompactFlash card with the device. μClinux has also been ported to FireBee.[7] CompatibilityThere are different strategies for dealing with the differences in ColdFire and 68K instruction set and opcodes:[8]
FireBee FPGA doesn't yet provide DSP functionality which means that any Atari Falcon specific programs requiring DSP won't run. Many Falcon games and demos use it to play background music. Development tool support
References
External links
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