A Throwback Workstation Emulated on a Business-Card-Sized Board

July 4, 2024 Hardware

The world of tech continues to amaze us as we see a throwback workstation emulated on a tiny, business-card-sized board. This unique innovation, which can almost fit into a wallet, utilizes the RP2040 chip. The project showcases the amazing capabilities of the RP2040 microcontroller and its potential to emulate complex systems.

The brainchild of this project is a software engineer known as ‘kapacuk’, who used the RP2040 chip for DECstation emulation. The DECstation is a series of computers from the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a renowned computer company from the late 20th century.

The DECstation 5000/200, first introduced in the early '90s, has been emulated on the business-card-sized board. The original DECstation used a MIPS R3000 CPU, and kapacuk has managed to recreate this through a DECstation emulator named 'GXemul'.

The RP2040 microcontroller, a product of Raspberry Pi, powers this emulator. The RP2040 chip is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor with a flexible clock running up to 133MHz. It is equipped with 264KB of on-chip SRAM, 6 dedicated IO blocks, a quad-SPI, and a large range of peripheral support.

The powerful RP2040 chip is capable of running the GXemul efficiently. The emulator runs the NetBSD operating system, which is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. This combination allows the business-card-sized board to emulate the DECstation 5000/200.

Kapacuk has engineered the business-card-sized board to include a VGA output, PS/2 keyboard input, and even a slot for a microSD card. This allows for an interactive experience with the emulated DECstation, displaying the NetBSD boot sequence on the connected monitor.

However, the emulation isn't perfect. The RP2040 microcontroller does not have enough memory to run the full version of the NetBSD operating system, and it is also unable to handle floating-point operations. Despite these limitations, the project is a testament to the capabilities of the RP2040 and its potential for future emulation projects.

The business-card-sized board is an impressive demonstration of how far we've come in computer technology. It presents an intriguing blend of the old and new, merging the power of modern microcontrollers with the nostalgic charm of retro computers. The DECstation emulator is not just a throwback to the past, but also a glimpse into the future of tech innovation. As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more such fascinating projects that push the boundaries of what is possible.

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