Altair 8800 on DE10-Standard, DE1-SoC and Arrow SoCKit FPGA

MiSTer Altair 8800 Core ported to DE10-Standard, DE1-SoC and Arrow SoCKit FPGA-s

This core implementation and porting is special because Altair 8800 Core can leverage Serial port as well, so the serial monitor console ported to industrial standard GPIO headers that are available on these boards.

Created a Video howto can you use the Altair 8800 Core

Created an instruction howto cable up the Serial Console in case of these boards

  • To use the serial port you need to have an I/O Board v5.5 or do a hardware Wiring:
    • Any USB to 3.3V (NOT 5.5V) TTL Serial Cable Adapter should work.
    • TX of the TTL Serial Cable Adapter -> First GPIO header: GPIO_D1 (PIN2)
    • RX of the TTL Serial Cable Adapter -> First GPIO header: GPIO_D0 (PIN1)
    • Don’t forget to wire the Ground -> First GPIO header: Ground – PIN12
  • Use Putty or TeraTerm for client and use the 19200 baud setting.

In case of Altera DE10-Standard the First GPIO header is JP1, because no other GPIO header

In case of Altera DE1-SoC the First GPIO header is JP1, the second is JP2

In case of Arrow SoCKit:

  • there is no integrated GPIO header, you have to use HSMC-GPIO daughter board card and the first available GPIO header will be J2.
  • before you connect the HSMC-GPIO board, you have to switch iostandards to 3.3V with JP2 jumper on ArrowSoc Kit board itself. If you miss this step, you can damage the connected devices/uart/usb/ttl devices on the daughter board, please be careful and connect to 3.3v mode phyisically!

The GPIO header layout will be similar for each boards.

Setup HSMC IOStandard in case of ArrowSoCKit

Wiring in case of DE10-Standard / DE1 SoC:

Wiring in case of Arrow SoCKit:

In case of everything setup, you should be able to use Serial as well

MEMORY SIZE? 4096
TERMINAL WIDTH? 255
WANT SIN? Y

726 BYTES FREE

BASIC VERSION 3.2
[4K VERSION]

OK

Download from Github:

Altair 8800 Core for DE10-Standard FPGA:
https://github.com/MiSTer-DE10-Standard/Altair8800_Mister

Altair 8800 Core for Arrow SoCKit FPGA:
https://github.com/MiSTer-Arrow-SoCKit/Altair8800_Mister

Altair 8800 Core for DE1-SoC FPGA:
https://github.com/MiSTer-DE1-SoC/Altair8800_Mister

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