----- Ordering Information -----

If you would like to pre-order a FireBee computer for 599 Euro (+VAT + shipping), there are two possibilities: 1.) We strongly recommend a SEPA bank transfer to our Swiss Euro bank account of Medusa Computer Systems. Simply send us an e-mail with your order and delivery address to 'acpinfo at atari dot org'. We will then provide you with the necessary information including IBAN and BIC. 2.) If you absolutely can not manage a bank transfer or the fees would be astronomical, go to medusacomputer.com and place a direct order with Paypal.

2010-07-09 Production Delays

At the production of the first series in the first half of June, our swiss assembling company had a huge rate of rejects. They got a problem with the very close conducting paths, and had a real production failure at the PCB production. Because Fredi Aschwanden from MCS controlled the boards, we could identify the fault before the parts got assembled. So we have 24 boards working correctly, which got assembled in the last two weeks and will arrive at MCS within the next week. This one will go to developers quickly, after implementing the basic software for initializing the hardware. For the rest of the series we get full compensation. As they made a real fault at production of the first series we get the complete series without any further costs, but with a delay of 4 to 6 weeks. So the first boards for customers will not be delivered in July. None of the defect boards will leave the Factory, they will not be repaired. New PCBs will be produced by our contractor. We are glad that we chose a swiss company which is granting the normal warranty of two years to all hardware production mistakes, and will deliver without problems the complete series as agreed. The warranty of two years also counts for boards delivered to customers. As this question often occures at forums or mailing lists, we like to assure you that you get full hardware warranty for your computer, as usual in Europe. Sorry for the delay!

2010-05-30 AHCC 4 and TeraDesk

On May 27th Henk Robbers published version 4 of his Pure-C compatible AHCC compiler. This is - to our knowledge - the worlds first development environment which is able to create programs that can be executed on ColdFire CPUs as well as the 68020, 030, 040, and 060 processors. As "proof of concept" Henk Robbers recompiled TeraDesk using AHCC. Therefore, TeraDesk is running ColdFire optimized at the full speed of the FireBee prototype. The same Binaries are executable on the 68020 and up. Both TeraDesk and AHCC are published as Open Source projects. Here you see a photo from the 21st of May 2010 with TeraDesk optimized for the ColdFire V4e running on one of our prototypes.

2010-05-17 The first FireBee series is now in production!

A few weeks ago we sent the production order to our swiss manufacturing company to produce the first FireBee series. The assembling company has reported back with a positive report about the part sourcing. All parts will arrive in Switzerland by the 4th of June. Also, the multilayer PCBs will be produced by then. On the 7th of June, Medusa Computer Systems will oversee the boards and the layout on-site, directly at the assembling company one more time. Beginning on the 8th of June, the first FireBee series will be produced. Subsequently, we will need further weeks to implement the software. We will deliver to developers and pre-order persons with a high level of technical knowledge as fast as possible. All other end users will be sent their FireBee in the 2nd half of 2010. We once again, want to explicitly thank all of you, who already by August 2009, through your advance payments made the new Atari-compatible hardware possible, and thereby made the production possible as well. You showed us, that you are willing to push the development forward, together with us. The first series of FireBee computers are still available for Euro 599 directly at our site.

2010-04-22 Prototypes Update

Flash-Rom is fully working. EmuTOS and FireTOS is basically bootable. BDM-Header is tested and working. Coldfire processor is operating. PCI-Bus is tested and working (Nec), "Direct Edge" is untested. Ram is operating perfectly, all 512 MB acessable from within TOS. IDE/Compact Flash is working now, driver ok, booting of Teradesk from CompatFlash ok. ROM Port is working. AC'97 is working. At the moment it is possible to send ST-Sound from the YM-2149 to the AC'97, mix it with any 2nd source and output it to "Sound Out" or "Audio Out (onboard)". Floppy disk drive, is running after some huge work. At the moment for HD. Wolfgang Förster and Fredi Aschwanden will solve timing issues inside the FPGA that it also works for DD. Game Port is measured and connected correctly. Akku is working (including charging electronics). PS/2 is measured, but no PIC software at the moment is present, so we didn´t test it. Atari Keyboard is working (development takes place with original Atari keyboard and mouse). Sound IN/Sound OUT is tested and working correctly (see AC'97). Highspeed serial is tested and ok. 128MB video- and special RAM are accessable and usable by the FPGA correctly. FPGA is operating correctly: already implemented Atari chips are: MFP, ACIA, Ajax, YM-2149, Glue, SCSI, Videl. The Graphic System is configured with 4 different palettes (all ST-, all TT-, all Falcon- and the new ACP resolutions). A switch between all 4 different glue implementations, while the computer is running is already possible. DSP and Blitter are missing so far. DVI-I is running. Both DVI and analog connections are tested and working very well. Ethernet is also running, some network functinallity is already possible with FireTOS. SD-Card is working without the FPGA, this means using the SD-card for ROM flashing could be possible. USB all 6 connector (4 external, 1 internal or internal via connecting plug) are tested and working well. USB input device and mass storage are already working in FireTOS. All other interfaces are connected to the FPGA and thus there is no need for extensive testing, pins could be changed by software. Most remaining interfaces are "just" measured once. Power consumption The prototypes are recently running with full power. All parts get the maximum possible energy and first test showed that the board needs 12 Watts. We belive that we can save much energy by shutting down unused parts by software, and by optimizing the FPGA configuration. But it seems that we will never achive the last year aspired 3 Watts. DC/DC converters The DC/DC converters are changed now. After the old one started with a wrong documentation, what leaded to one dead prototype, as one pin which should be "not connected" was documented as "GND", the other converters also made some problems. We therefore changed all DC/DC converters (7 different voltages are needed) to the Nec LM2854. The operation by hand, at one of our prototypes succeeded without harming the board, and tests with the NEC worked great! So the series will now be produced with the new converters. The board is ready for the first series. Small changes at the layout of the conducting paths have to be done now, as some are to near to each other for a series (what was not such a delicate thing at the 3 prototypes). The factory already started to order the needed parts. And final ordering of the first series will happen soon.

2010-03-19 Frank Naumann has passed away

Today we received the sad news that our co-developer, Frank Naumann, has passed away on the 12th of March, 2010. Frank was well known for his brilliant work with FreeMiNT by almost every person inside the Atari community. He supported the Atari Coldfire Project from the beginning, and wanted to help with software porting and optimization for our new computer. The Atari community adopted the idea of Open Source mainly through the selfless accomplishments of Frank Naumann. Now others have to continue his work, what was made possible by Frank's vision. However there will be a big gap inside the small Atari community because of his incredible knowledge and his understanding of the Atari Operating System. Frank left us much too early at the very young age of 34 years. In the Atari community he has made a name for himself and he will not be forgotten, as every machine booted will still display his name well into the future. Frank will be missed by many. Also the Atari Coldfire Project has lost a team member with outstanding knowledge. Our thoughts and compassion go out to his family and his close friends.

2010-03-01 The Official Name

We are proud to announce, that the community decided for a name of our computer. Firebee is from now on the official name of our hardware.

2010-02-23 Switch to a New Vote-System

The poll system we´ve been using till now is not the best one, as several people recognised. That´s why the team decided to switch to another vote-system with an extra mailconfirmation, to make it harder for those of you who like some names so mucht to vote hundred times for it. ;) The vote for the name of our new computer is now extended to February the 28th. Please everybody vote again for your favorite name. This time you have to confirm your vote via E-mail before it will be counted. The email adresses won´t be used for anything else than the vote verification. After the vote all of them will be deleted, we do not collect them. The official name will now be published after another week of poll at 1st of March. Sorry for the inconvenience!

2010-02-11 The voting - till 20th of February

It's getting serious: now you got the chance to vote one out of the 10 following proposals which arrived us through the community to find the name you would like to give the future ACP Atari compatible computer. You have exactly one vote, which you can place at your favorite name. First we will introduce all the nominations to you. Below you can vote by clicking your proper link. All votes will be counted until 23:59 o'clock on 20th of February. On February the 21st the official name under which the computer will be produced es presented. Here are your possible choices: Avatari Care about palingenesis? Will the computer be a heavenly aspect, which is taking shape, or has "just" someone sent us the power to be able to achive ministration at a special mission? Avatari deflects from Avatar, what %96 in the indian mythology - means the personal manifestation of a divinity. In this case the reincarnation Ataris, the god of the Atarians. Benu Or a resurrection from the own ashes? In the ancient Egypt men saw at sunset a Falcon, which was new born during the sunrise as heron. Hence developed Benu, the denomination of an ancient egyptian god of the netherworld, also the soul of the god of sun Ra. The myth tells that every several hundred years the Falcon incinerates at sunrise, to resurrect in a tapered way from his own ashes, and fly aloft skywards. Blue Kea 7454 The attributes to transport are: speed, intelligence, versatility and low power consumption. Kea, a New Zealand parrot which is one of the most intelligent birds around is definitely the best tool-user and most mechanically adept. The story goes that if you need your car disassembled, just park it near a colony of these birds and a week later you can collect the parts. On top of this the Kea has been extensively hunted, due to the fact that this starling size bird hunts and kills sheep. An intelligent and versatile hunter! Caribou Caribous are forceful animals out of the family of deers. Since around 1000 B.C. this persistent animals are used by humans in the far north, however there are living more of them in the great outdoors than there are breeding animals in existance. Caribous are naturally smaller than cows or horses with their 1.4 m, but get utilized many-sided as pack, draft animals or meat suppliers %96 even exclusively by some humans! The particular about caribous: they are the only ones of their class, which ever could be domesticated by humans, they become furthermore breeded and utilized even if this is not mainstream, caribous live under coolest environments. Caribous typically live up to 15 to 20 years, and young caribous become extremely fast self-consistent. Coldari Coldari is our internal project name for the board. Already in December 2008, still before a team was in existance, Fredi Aschwanden had this idea - but he was not completely confident. The decision for a good name was adjourned, and like history goes, the name Coldari has somewhat established. Several people took the name into their hearts in the meanwhile, and some even think that it should be tied up to the last 14 months - after all our prototypes bear the name Coldari... Colddream A dream comes true, ... at least for some of you. Nobody had expected that after more than ten years someone succeeded in creating an Atari-compatible again. One of the outstanding features of the board is for sure the coldness - no single heat sink and no fan is applied. A ColdFire, what more could be said, ... Firebee It's not a raptor but it's flying as well! The bee is probably one of the symbols par excellence we are connecting with our Ataris. If it is busy and appears instead of the cursor, we are waiting with any further input till the bee has disappeared. Our computer will appear to some extent for us like a bee with a mighty swift kick in the butt. A Firebee, hardly to see anymore, ... FirST v4e Our first computer will be built soon. That's why FirST could be a good decision. Also this name could remind users about the famous ST Computer - and more a Fire ST, like the bee with much fire inside. We'll for sure see an Atari compatible computer with a Coldfire processor, and run our ST software on never-before known speed. Gemhenge Something "old" and a little bit mystic (maybe some features the most people don't know). Made of robust material, to rest for the upcoming milleniums, and resist everything what may come. A building for our beloved GEM - a Stonehenge for GEM - as gems are stones and gem in Danish means "save". TOSfire TOS is our Operating System. There are still people outside who love this singletasking system and the easiness it provides. It's simply working. That's why we will deliver the computer with a TOS licence, and keep an eye at the development of our basic Operating System. The Coldfire will bring much fire again to our TOS - a TOSfire machine under guarantee!

2010-02-10 Propositions of names

ACP Team would like to say thanks to all people who joined the process of name finding. Altogether you sent 183 proposals 173 of which we couldn't take into the final list. From tomorrow on you'll find the best ten ideas at this place and have the opportunity to vote for the final name. For the most ideas which couldn't take part in the final voting there already existed brand or product names, or there had already been a copyright on the name. This really was a pity with some of the names, such as 'Leningrad' which is a ZX-Spectrum Clone, 'Colibri' being a Colibri-board or 'AINA - AINA is no Atari' being the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Invormation Networking and Applications. For documentation here are all proposals which did not reach the final voting round: @-R-E, Aarcti, Aarctic, AartiC, Aarctik, Aarctiq, Abroad, ACF 5400, ACM - Atari Coldfire Machine, ACP, ACP 1, ACP 010, ACP 474 ST, ACP 512, ACP-700, ACP 2010, ACP BEE-EATER 010, ACP BEE-EATER 2010, ACP BEE-FORTRESS 010, ACP BEE-FORTRESS 2010, ACP Cold ST, ACP Cougar, ACP Falcon Pro III, ACP Fire ST, ACP Hellfire, ACP Kea, ACP Koldbrann, ACP ONE, ACP ULTOS M 010, ACP ULTOS M 2010, ACP ULTOS 010, ACP ULTOS 2010, AINA- AINA is no Atari, Alinka, Ataconda, Atacondor, Antarctiqq, Antarcticc, Artic Lava, Artic Magma, Artic Vulcano, Arcticc, Arctiqq, ATARINA, Ataspic, Basilisk, bennu, Blizzard, Bluedream, Catari, CGM Coldfire GEM Machine, CGP Coldfire GEM Project, CCS - ColdfireComputerSystem, Cirata, CLDFRE, Colda, Coldac, Coldak, Coldarko, coldbird, coldboard, coldbox, Coldias, Coldiak, Coldibrik, Coldibriq, Coldic, Coldina, Coldinka, Colfir, Coldfirek, Cold Turkey, Colibri, Coldibri, COLTARI, Coltari Falcon, Comet v4e, Condor, Coolfusion, Cooltari, C/Fire, C-LDA, ACP Critter, Difference, Dream, Dreamfire, Eisvogel, Facepower, Falcon V4e, (acp) firebird, Firebird, (acp) firebox, FireGEM, FreeNet, Frenchfree, Fujiboard, Fujijama, Fujiyama, Gather, GemFire, GigaST, GoC - GEM on Coldfire, Goticc, Harrier, Hawk, (ATARI) HCS - HomeComputerSystem, i@Re, iceDream, Icefuji, Falcon - ColdFire Falcon compatible, iceGEM, Icehawk, Ice Kea 7454, IceTos, iDream, Incendia, I N C I T A R I, IrataC, iSpirit, Kestrel, Kolibric, Kolibrik, Kolibriq, Leningrad, LitleMouse, Malinka, MCS Newera V4e, Medusa Coldfire, Medusa Mintari, Medusa Phoenix CF, Merlin, MILAN CF, Mintari, NATARI, Nectaric, Nectaricc, Nektarik, Nectarin, Nektariq, NetCrasy, Newera, Newera ACP, Newera PCI, Newera V4e, Newera CF, NEXTOS, Nextos, Nixiek, Opening, phoenix, Pixelik, Poeticc, Poetiq, Ppoemm, Ppolarr, P-xyp, Pyro60+, Qotiq, Rainbow, Raptor, Sansan, Sierra, Spirit, Spirit v4e, ST(ultra), te ari, The fabulous Ice machine, The Love Machine, Ukeru, Vulcan, Volcano, Vulkan, Widel, Yleqotiq

2010-01-31 New developers

At latest by the time we announced USB driver development more developers joined forces with ACP. Now we want to tell you who we are talking about. We are very glad about people who couldn't work with us a year ago, or who have been inactive regarding the Atari sector. People knowing the scene will already know most of the names - they speak for themselves! As members we are greeting: Alexander Beuscher Olivier Landemarre Bernhard Pavelka Odd Skancke Jo Even Skarstein David-Harley Strango-Saunders As advisors we are greeting: Thomas Baumgärtner (Soundpool) Dirk Klemmt Miro Kropacek Naturally this doesn't mean our project team is completed and every part of it is sufficiently covered. There's still much to do! Especially the parts which don't require knowledge in software or hardware development could need support.

2010-01-21 Our Board

The following poster provides a complete overview of the board. Anyone who prints it out at A3, will get a 1:1 version of the hardware. The poster itself was first presented, in an older version, at the Eurocon in Vienna, and later at the Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) in Berlin. Poster's full version in pdf-format (2.8 MB) Because the cost is sometimes asked about, the price is a definitive Euro 599. The hardware will be build by Medusa Computer Systems / Switzerland, who is also providing the standard warranty. It can, since mid 2009, be ordered in advance at the project website.

2010-01-07 Computer Naming

We decided to let the Atari community find a name for our computer. The current codename of our project is 'Coldari' which some people don't like too much. Thus we want you to find a name for us - you, who supported us, contacted us with hints and sending good wishes within the last year. We want comprehensive debates and brainstormings on Atari-Home.de, Atari-Forum.com and on our mailing list. We ask you to send earnest ideas to 'acpinfo at atari dot org' until January 31st 2010. The team (which has grown to 37 persons up to now) will then find the best 10 propositions and check them regarding usuability. An acclamation until February 20th 2010 will then assign the definite name. Please take care about trademark rights. 'Atari 2010', 'New Falcon' or 'Microsoftkiller' would be discarded at once. On February 21st we will officially nominate the computer to its name, which you chose, and under which it will then be produced. We will nonetheless refrain from throwing a Magnum bottle of Champaigne at one of the prototypes ;) Please send numerous ideas ...

2009-12-24 Zoom inside the ColdFire

As the name implies, the heart of the ACP computer will be a ColdFire microprocessor. We have chosen the model MCF5474, which is the fastest one. The ColdFire processor family is designed and produced by Freescale Semiconductor, the subsidiary of Motorola on semiconductors. The ColdFire chip is not only a CPU (like the 680x0 family was), it is actually a microcontroller. A lot of useful additional controllers are built directly into the ColdFire chip. They are directly usable on our computer, providing a very high level of integration. This is why the ColdFire is the best choice for designing a modern Atari-compatible computer. - CPU 266 MHz The main component of the MCF5474 is a ColdFire V4e Core. It is very similar to the 680x0 CPU family, but not fully compatible. Basically, some complex or rarely used instructions and addressing modes have been removed. Thus the ColdFire CPU is more simple and cheaper than any 680x0 CPU, while being a lot faster. With an additional lightweight software layer, the ColdFire CPU can be made compatible with existing 680x0 programs. - FPU The Floating Point Unit is the mathematical coprocessor. When used, it provides a big speedup for programs using intensive math functions. The ColdFire FPU is similar to the 68881, but it has limitations in instruction set and addressing modes, like the CPU. - MMU The Memory Management Unit can be used to provide Virtual Memory or memory protection between the different processes running on an operating system. - Cache 32 KB x 2 The ColdFire cache is divided into a 32 KB instruction cache and a 32 KB data cache. The usage of the caches improves greatly the speed of the CPU, by optimizing the accesses to the external memory. - SRAM 32 KB The Static RAM is a high speed memory embedded into the ColdFire. It is required for DMA transfers, but can also be used for any other purpose when high performance is required. - EMAC unit The Enhanced Multiply-Accumulate Unit is a DSP-like unit supporting integer and fixed-point operations. It can be used to speedup some specific process such as image compression. - PCI controller The PCI bus has become the standard for extension boards in desktop computers. The ColdFire has built-in support for controlling PCI devices. This allows the usage of the hundreds of PCI boards available on the market. Of course specific drivers will have to be developed for every PCI card. - DDR-SDRAM controller The ColdFire can work with external DDR-SDRAM, for excellent performance. The ACP board has 512 MB of DDR-SDRAM built-in. - Interrupt controller The built-in interrupt controller can be compared with the MFP 68901, but a lot more flexible and powerful. It can use up to 63 interrupt sources with a specific exception vector for each source. - Timers 4 General Purpose Timers (GPT) and 2 Slice Timers (SLT) are available. They are comparable to the Timers A/B/C/D of the MFP 68901, but more configurable. - High Speed RS-232 controller The built-in Programmable Serial Controller (PSC) can be configured as a RS-232 interface for high-speed transfers, including at 115200 bps. - Ethernet 10/100 controller A standard Ethernet controller is built directly into the processor. This allows an instant connexion to the local network and Internet. - BDM / JTAG interfaces These debug interfaces can be used with hardware debuggers or external software for monitoring the CPU activity or flashing the EEPROMS. As you have seen, the ColdFire MCF5474 chip contains an incredible list of useful components, and there are even more. The full documentation is available on the Freescale website: MCF5475RM.pdf

2009-12-11 First working GEM Application

We have just enabled the floppy drive on our prototype. This means we are now able to run external ColdFire programs. Here is the first one. It's a small GEM test application displaying an alert box. The ACP computer becomes usable, this opens the door to a bunch of new test programs.

2009-11-26 SDL has been adapted to our machine

By mid of november Patrice Mandin has published a new version of SDL. This 1.2.14 release is the first one containing ColdFire support in order to be able to run on our Coldari to be. We are highly delighted about this as Patrice is not associated with the Atari Coldfire Project in any way, and Simple DirectMedia Layer will be the first external application to support our computer. This support shows - although being theoretical due to lack of testing machines - that we can count on wide acceptance in programmers' circles and that our initiative is a further good way to improve the situation within the Atari 16/32 sector. We hope to see numerous cases of program optimisation within the next months, including some outside the open source area. Further information about SDL on Patrice's web pages.

2009-11-18 State of the Prototype & First simplified EmuTOS booted!

Since the end of October we are working at the prototype. Following is tested an working: Power and batterie charger PIC18F5420 (Power controller) MCF5474 (LED is blinking) Flash DDRAM (Hardware diagnostics memory test passed) FPGA programming (LED is blinking) Video DDR-RAM (0 wait states!!) is running and tested and has passed the hardware diagnostic test TFP410 und DVI is tested an running. The Image quality at it seems good. SRAM for FPGA has the hardware diagnostic test passed PCI is running and the USB-Chip is dedect FPGA programming Video is running and tested about 1680x1050 167MHz and OK. The Image quality seems good. The next item is to implement the "Falcon chips" in the FPGA Yesterday we were able to boot for the first time a simplified version of EmuTOS, using only the VIDEL for video output. The usage of other Atari hardware (including keyboard) has been disabled for test purposes. The components will be enabled one by one in the next days, to easily detect and fix eventual bugs step by step.

2009-10-27 Sound Progress

Since July Didier got one AC´97 codec we are going to use at our computer, soldered to his ColdFire Evaluation-Board. Writing the complete driver consists of 3 parts. The XBIOS, MCF547X/548X driver, and AC97 codec driver. The XBIOS was comparatively easy, as there was the MagicSound (Aranym/MagiCMac), and thus is finished. It uses Linux ControlNames for the ac97_codec.c compatibility. For the progress of AC97 codec part cleaned Linux sources are used, which needs several command replacements. At the moment AC link problems with the Coldfire (writing problems, reset values in registers) are under development and in progress. The XBIOS is compatible with the MilanBlaster/GSXB software and allows to select each source: AUX (PSG on Coldari), CD, LINE, MIC, but also FM -> PC Beep and VIDEO The AC97 native list of frequency is 8000 Hz, 11025 Hz, 16000 Hz, 22050 Hz, 32000 Hz, 44100 Hz and 48000 Hz. As well the driver for the LynxEM (PCI-onboard graphic chip of the evaluationboards) is ready-made. The testing and debuging of the driver will take place in the following weeks. Now you can use the EVBs with onboard graphics and without the need for a Radeon. You can always follow Didiers progress at his page. At this picture you see the achievement of huge work soldering a AC´97 by hand to a ColdFire Evaluationboard. Didier added a mini-jack sound output on the left between the Ethernet and RS-232 ports.

2009-10-08 The Prototypes arrived

Picture 1 (high quality) Picture 2 (high quality) Picture 3 (high quality) Picture 4 (high quality) Picture 5 (high quality)

2009-10-05 Discount Source for ColdFire Evaluationboards

Our teammember Mark established contacts to a real cheap source for ColdFire Evaluationboards. We got the possibility for at all 20 pieces of M5485 EVBs, for 125 US$ each unit to buy. Original retail price is $850. Through this it will become possible to immediatly (before our project reaches series production) start with the adaptation, and above all, the testing of software which is running at ColdFire. Developers, especially those who care about softwaretitles or who are not part of the ACP, can and shall participate in our contacts. Who wants to order a Evaluationboard for 125 Dollar, should contact us as soon as possible. At this EVBs Didiers patched FireTOS and MiNT is already running. Who want´s one? For those programmers who are not so good with hardware, Mark is offering the possibility of creation of coldfire development machines. They will consist of an M5485EVB which is one of the fastest coldfires available, Eiffel (CAN-Bus) for using PS/2 keybord and mouse, a Radeon graphiccard, CompactFlash. Also HD-Driver, FireTOS and MiNT are ready setup and configured. This ready EVB, which will be 500 US$, comes with the following features: 16MB Boot flash 64MB SDRAM (NOT UPGRADEABLE) 2 PCI slots (1 usable easily) Real time clock IRDA 2 10/100Mbit Ethernet ports USB High speed Host + 4 USB ports 1 USB client port 2 ISA ports (for possible future use) Onboard CHIPS video controller Serial null modem console cable Parallel BDM cable For detailed specifications we recommend the Freescale site for the product and the picture Didier is currently working at a driver for the LynxEM (Graphic PCI chip - which is soldered at the EVBs) and expects to finished to write in several weeks. Please contact Piku directly at http://www.atari-source.org/ or our project mailaderess acpinfo (at) atari.org

2009-09-18 USB driver development started

Like several times reported, we expect the development of the USB driver to be one of the biggest tasks which is imminent to our project. Today we´d like to acquaint you with our undertaking and everything what happened till now, regarding USB. For about three month we got a new team member - Sascha Heinisch. Sascha decided after a short time within the ACP to become maintainer of the widespread USB-project for Atari. Together with David Galvez he forms a small team, which will realize the long term driver development, among supervision of the rest of the team. The team is, as a matter of course, open for further persons. Especially we would appreciate attendance of those people, who so far already did USB-programming at Atari, and who are not reachable for us within the last weeks! The long way: At present the team familiarize itself with low-level driver development as with OHCI and EHCI specifications. The chip which is used from us, is a further part which needs widespreaded vocational adjustment. Beside the preliminary stages from within the Atari community there are two leads available for us: 1) A GPL Linux-driver for the NEC µPD720101 Because the NEC is used at many PC-USB cards, and also our chip will be attached via PCI-bus, nothing get in the way of using any USB-card with NEC µPD720101 under Aranym to be able to start imediatly with driver development. 2) The since 2009-27-08 freed Amiga stack Poseidon. (The community did buyoff the stack for Aros, and this now was released under the free Aros-licence). With the programmer and former owner Chris Hodges, friendly contact is established for a while. Not least we could possibly learn something from the 8-Bit scene and use reasonable solutions from http://microusb.org/ . The ACP is prepared for a really long-term development. To make clear what that means: we expect USB-Input-Device and USB-Mass-Storage not before summer 2010. Therefore the development can take place at a level which can be kept up over a long time. Our Chip: Contrary to our first announcements - that we like to use the ISP1536, we had rapid to rearrange, because the chip is not longer delivered. Anyhow we think that 95% of our future developments will be usable for all Atari-projects with USB and will leverage the entire platform to utilization of USB. We think about EtherNat, CTLink, NetUSBee und Suska, for which alltogether no expedient USB-stack is in existance. All this projects should, with small adaptions, be able to profit from our Open Source development. Together: Who likes to take a long-term role at ACP is, as every time, called to report, and support the USB-team - even with small contributions! Together many things work much more easier, it simply is imperative that we organize us meaningful.

2009-09-03 New Pictures

To satisfy your curiosity, waiting for the prototypes arrival, we got again some pictures from a paperboard with laid samples. It is about the last version, which was sent to the factory for production. Picture (2,9MB high quality) Picture (1,7 MB high quality) Picture (2,0 MB high quality)

2009-08-27 Official Atari Coldfire Project theme song

We are proud to announce the official Atari Coldfire Project theme song. Produced by Neo Bechstein in July 2009. The Voice "Atari Coldfire" is generated with STSpeech at an 1040 ST and the song was recorded with a Falcon. We like to thank him for his efforts to support our project with a song, with this status. Also we want to show you out there, that there are many possibilities to bring our project forward. Neo Bechstein - Atari Coldfire Project.mp3 (21MB) Neo Bechstein - Atari Coldfire Project.ogg (14MB high quality) Neo Bechstein - Atari Coldfire Project.ogg (7MB low quality)

2009-08-06 Schema & Co.

Today we got the assembly diagram and the schema for you. Below you can download our 5th revision as sent to the factory for the prototype production. assembly diagram schema

2009-08-05 Prototypes ordered

At the 4th of august we ordered three prototypes of our new ColdFire Computer. It´s the revision 0.98 of our board with the redesign to a DVI-I connector and some other minor changes. The boards should arrive in around 6 weeks at Medusa Computer Systems in Switzerland. Please everyone who preordered, prepare for the advance payment. ;) Because ordering the prototypes means: the computer will be built!

2009-07-28 Suska III-C available

Not directly an ACP issue, but very important news is that the Suska III-C board is now available. The Suska is an Atari-ST(e) Clone, with all the modern connectors. It is produced by Wolfgang Förster who is also part of the ACP. The Suska Board was designed during more than 5 years (!) of work done mainly by Wolfgang. Every single Atari-chip was redesigned and reverse-engineered to be configurable in VHDL and to be used inside a modern FPGA. So we now have every custom chip available as open source configuration, to produce further Atari-compatible computers. Also in January Wolfgang agreed to become a member of the ACP and to support Fredi Aschwanden with developing the hardware. The ACP board as far as it depends on the FPGA, is mainly based on the free VHDL core which was developed for the Suska. So we now want to point out the fact that the Suska board is readily designed and that for the first time within the last decade we got a new and available Atari-compatible computer. The Suska is an extremely compatible replacement for our Atari ST(e)s, which might be interesting for people who like to play the old original games or demos. The Suska III-C board is now directly availaible for Euro 619,- (VAT included) from Inventronic. We like to assure you that we do not see our projects as a rivalry. In fact, the huge amount of work done for the Suska lead to a fast developement for the ACP. The Suska and the ACP board are for different needs, and we are proud that our beloved TOS compatible platform soon will get a second deliverable computer. http://experiment-s.de/en http://shop.inventronik.de/store

2009-07-20 EmuTOS "proof of concept" has been done

Vincent Rivière managed to run EmuTOS on the M5484LITE evaluation board in text mode. He disabled the AES, so it boots into EmuCON, the early console. The console I/O is redirected to the ColdFire serial port. So with any terminal emulator, we can type commands and see the results. Be sure this EmuTOS version is fully ColdFire software and does not contain any 680x0 emulation. Currently EmuTOS boots instantly, the display speed is only limited by the serial port. Vincent also implemented a ramdisk to run ColdFire TOS programs. He is going to cleanly integrate the ColdFire support into the official EmuTOS CVS repository, with the help of the EmuTOS developers. So after Didier Méquignon's FireTOS (patched TOS 4.04), this is the second Atari OS running on ColdFire processors. In this picture (click on it to see the full version) you see a terminal emulator running on another computer, connected to the ColdFire board through an RS-232 cable. The file emutos2.srec, containing the EmuTOS ROM and the ramdisk data, is downloaded into the board through the Ethernet connection via the TFTP protocol. Then EmuTOS can boot and access the ramdisk through the A: drive. This OS can currently run ColdFire programs only (for example, those compiled with GCC and the ColdFire MiNTLib), an additional emulation layer for running standard 680x0 programs will be added later.

2009-07-12 Hardware transfers

The developments are progressing continuously. Recently quite a lot of hardware transfers occurred in our team. Fredi Aschwanden got a sample of our AC'97 Codec and sent it to Didier Méquignon. Didier has connected it to his ColdFire evaluation board and is currently working on the software part. Markus Fichtenbauer is sending a NetUSBee to Sascha Heinisch. Olivier Landemarre sent his ColdFire evaluation board - which he got from Mark Duckworth - to Vincent Rivière, and we thank him a lot. Vincent also got an Eiffel adapter from Alan Hourihane, so he can use a PS/2 keyboard and a mouse with the board. From now on he will be able to do experiments on the real hardware, for a better understanding of the ColdFire internals. Moreover, he is also porting EmuTOS to ColdFire, and most of the work has already been done.

2009-06-12 Technical Background

Technical Background about the planned ColdFire-Computer acptechEN1.pdf

2009-06-07 MiNTLib ready-made for ColdFire and a new member

Vincent Rivière has finished to port the MiNTLib to ColdFire, his work has been included into the official sources. First tests on M5484LITE Board show that it works perfectly on TOS. Just after that, he has published a new version of his cross compiler GCC 4.4.0 with full ColdFire support, including the MiNTLib, math and GEMLib libraries. This compiler can be used right now to produce native ColdFire TOS programs that will run at the highest speed on our new computer. The cross-compiler is available on Vincent's page. Dima Sobolev from St. Petersburg/Russia joined the ACP. Dima is well known to STeem and TeraDesk users, and he also russified TOS 2.06. So we from now on got somebody responsible for "translation english/russian & TOS localization". Dimas "work" will reinforce the Atari-Scene from "Kaliningrad" to "Vladivostok" and help russian speaking Atari users to use our latest developements. We now also got a great teammember who got high experiance with lokalization of TOS in general.

2009-05-23 TOS, MiNT and DVI

Didier Méquignon has adapted Firetos (his already for CT60 use patched version of TOS 4.04) to our new hardware. He has done quite a lot of work, so we can expect to boot our new board as soon as the prototypes are availaible. This work - also an adaptation of the work already done for ColdFire - became possible because of Didiers huge experience at the M5484LITE board since 2006. Vincent Rivière is currently patching the MiNTLib to enable its recompilation for the ColdFire processor, in order to produce fully native ColdFire executables which will run at full speed on our computer. He expects his work to be finished soon. Finally Fredi Aschwanden decided after a discussion on the Atari-Home forum to upgrade the hardware to a DVI-I connector instead of the first planned VGA. Most of the preordering persons would like to see our computer equipped with VGA and DVI possibilities and are also willing to pay more to have the digital video signals. But as a majority wants VGA - which could be seen after a quick poll - we decided to use DVI-I with both signals, and have the possibility to use an adapter from DVI to VGA. The works concerning this matter already began.

2009-05-19 New development environment and a new language

Besides of the hardware we cared about a new development environment during last week. The developers of vbcc agreed to adapt the MiNT and TOS target of their development environment to the V4e. Thus very soon Crosscompiling will be at our disposal on many different platforms, for example AmigaOS/MorphOS, MacOS X etc. vbcc can be compiled without any changes for each platform on which an Ansi-C compiler is in existance. The vbcc team will change the last two known errors for ColdFire and we will extensively test and send bug-reports, which then again will be worked on. Likewise vbcc will be available on the ColdFire and is the fourth development environment which will run on our computer. Today it was a great pleasure to introduce our spanish news due to further support. We now can report about our progress in five languages. A big thanks goes to Victor and David.

2009-05-12 New team member for editorial office and translation

After yesterdays request for participation in the ACP, Jens Riemann contacted us and offered help. Jens will immediately assume the editorial office and translations between German and English. Further we need people speaking French and Spanish who are willing to take on a long-term role inside ACP. This would help to release developers and to push on the project.

2009-05-11 Two of the best Atari developers joined ACP

Didier Méquignon is with us and and will work on the ColdFire board - as soon as his "job" at CTPCI (from powerphenix) is finished . At first he likes to work at the AC'97 codec of the board. He will also bring in his great knowledge about ColdFire in general. To be sure to understand the relevance of this news; Didier patched TOS 4 to run at a ColdFire-board, got MiNT up and running at his developementboard, wrote a driver for ATI-Radeon-cards, and got one of the two only working coldfire-systems which are in existance at the moment. And that was not all! His already done great work can be contemplated at: ctpci-e.htm Lonny Pursell also agreed to join the Atari Coldfire Project as official member. As we already reported, Lonnys aim is to get GFA-Basic ready for ColdFire. Lonnys knowledge will be a big help for the whole team and beside working closely together with the compiler team (AHCC and GCC) he will also help at some minor tasks and give advice to the developers where his competency can be helpfully. Further helping hands, especially translators and developers, are welcome every time!

2009-05-07 Simplified schematic of our new computer

2009-05-05 Support of all relevant developement environments assured!

GFA-BASIC Lonny Pursell announced his efforts for supporting the new Coldfire Computer in a first reaction after our public announcement. The maintainer of GFA-Basic prefigured possibility of reworking the GFA-Basic Compiler/Library so it builds CF native apps. Should he succeed then this would allow just a recompile of existing applications, to get even more stuff up and running at improved speeds. Lonney Pursell declared that he´s willing to do a lot of work, how he suspects it, if the machine is released. He explicitely welcomes our decision about which processor we choosed for the future developement of the Atari-ST plattform. "I'd still like to see such a beast of a machine. You would not see me jumping on the support band wagon if it was some other processor though. [...] I see the CF as an old friend who maybe went on a long trip, came back a slightly changed man. A warm familiar face I can easily speak to." he said. Read his entire message at the public MinT Mailinglist. GCC 4.4.0 GCC 4.4.0 has just been released, Vincent Rivière has updated the MiNT patches for it and built the Cygwin binaries. He enabled compiler support for the ColdFire V4e family. So right now, we can run that cross-compiler on Windows systems to write initilialization code for our ColdFire board, and to check the compatibility of other software, even if there is no hardware yet. Since the GCC patches are host-independant, the cross-compiler binaires can be rebuilt for any OS supported by GCC (MacOS X support has already been announced by Markus Fröschle). Your help is welcome ! You can find Vincent's patches and binaries here: m68k-atari-mint tools Vincent has also started to enable ColdFire support in the MiNTLib. He evaluated that is was possible with a reasonable amount of work. When this is done, it will be possible to produce native ColdFire MiNT/TOS software what will run at full speed on our new computer. GCC is the universal C/C++ compiler. Combined with current support inside the FreeMiNT kernel and the MiNTLib, it allows to port GNU/Linux software directly to Atari/MiNT. Moreover, it can be used to write standard TOS software (including GEM) at a very high level of optimization. Pure-C compatible AHCC Henk Robbers, also part of the Atari Coldfire Project, again declared, that AHCC will be adapted to the ColdFire. So a lightweight C-compiler will most likely be available too. AHCC is verry important for recompiling existing Atari applications - and it´s GEM and single-tasking compatible. Most native Atari software is written using Pure-C and can be recompiled with AHCC. Henk Robbers´ roadmap: 1 Compile and run EmuTOS. As a proof of concept. 2 Implement CF machine option in TT-Digger. 3 Implement 68020/CF compatibility target in AHCC. 4 Recompile and run EmuTOS. 5 Implement CF specific target in AHCC. 6 Rewrite in C the VDI_BLIT & VDI_TBLIT functions of EmuTOS. 7 Hopefully at this time the ACP board exists. :-) 8 Recompile and run EmuTOS. 9 Recompile AHCC and run it on the ACP board. 10 Be happy to have lived through all of this. With this three important developement environments we got the neccessary fundament to compile software native for the ColdFire computer. That would be executable with maximum speed at the ColdFire. For the future we hope thereby for many new developements for the whole range of TOS/GEM

2009-05-01 News on Italian

Thanks to great support from the community, after our first public announcement, we today could open our news on italian language. From now on we will be reporting about further developments of the project beside english, french and german also in italian. Further languages are welcome!

2009-04-30 Official ACP email address

We now have an official email address for the project. Please use only this one for any communication with us, including for preorders. acpinfo (at) atari (dot) org

2009-04-28 Atari Coldfire Project Reloaded

Since the beginning of December 2008 we've been evaluating the possibilities of continuing the Atari Coldfire Project or starting over with it. Our evaluation is now complete and we'd like to let you know that we consider this project basically possible and that from now on we will be working under the name "Atari Coldfire Project". Our primary goal is to build a new Atari TOS clone which is based on a Coldfire processor and to make it available to the public for the lowest possible price. This is a free project that is free of commercial interests of any kind. One of the main goals with our new hardware is to allow further development to be possible in the future in the widest possible scope. "Hardware updates" will become possible by VHDL code for free. The long term goal is absolute compatibility with every Atari TOS machine ever built. In the beginning however, we can assure Hades compatibility. At the moment the following people are involved: Matthias Alles Lyndon Amsdon Fredi Aschwanden Joachim Boltz Mark Duckworth Norman Feske Markus Fichtenbauer Wolfgang Förster David Galvez Kassian A. Goukassian Alan Hourihane Oliver Kotschi Frank Naumann Vincent Rivière Henk Robbers Mathias Wittau Further support and advice at special tasks comes from: Pascal Barlier Arnaud Bercegeay Jens Klietz Peter Persson We are currently in contact with other famous people, this list will soon get bigger! We welcome and request help from every person who can contribute something, no matter how small! Remember too, that since this is a free project, it absolutely depends on community involvement and cannot be accomplished without your help. Because Fredi Aschwanden with the support from Wolfgang Förster directly began to develop the hardware, there is an interim layout of the planned computer available. It got two advantages which could also be interresting for non Atari enthusiasts, we would like to point at. The verry small size of the board and the extremely low power consumption. The actual specifications are: Processor: Coldfire MCF5474, 266MHz, 400MIPS RAM: DDR, 512MB Main- + 128MB Video- and Special-RAM on Board, Speed: 1GB/s Flash: 8MB on Board for Operating Systems Operating system: TOS3.06 for the beginning (we're trying for EmuTOS as TOS 4, from which we can maybe get even the source code, also) Atari compatible interface ports: - TT/Falcon-IDE, - ST/TT-Floppy - TT-SCSI (but faster), - ACSI - ROM-Port: 2x2mm Connector - Printer Port, parallel - ST/TT-serial, - Midi, - ST-Sound, YM2149 over AC'97 - ST/TT/Falcon-Video - Atari-Keyboard with Mouse Other Ports: - Ethernet 10/100, 1 Port - USB 2.0 Host (ISP1563), 4 Ports - Compact-Flash, 1 Port - SD-Card, 1 Port - AC'97 Stereo Codec with DMA-Sound Output and 48kHz Sampling Input - Sound_Connectors: LineIn, LineOut, Mic (Mono), DVD/CD internal - New Video Modes about 2MegaPixel, true color - PS2 Mouse/Keybord Port Battery Powered (if desired) PCI 33MHz direct Edge for passive backplane Power controller with real time clock, PIC16F506 Extension socket: 60Pol (DSPI 33Mbaud, seriel sync or async about 33MBaud, 26Bit I/O about 133MHz, I2C-Bus) Asynchrone 512kB static RAM for DSP or similar already planed extensions in the future: Falcon DSP in the FPGA Format: Card 90mm x 260mm x 20mm Power consumption of the complete board: 3 to 5 Watts The board for this computer will be in a PCI form factor. What this means is that you will be able to use it in three ways, all equally well: 1. As a independent motherboard. 2. As a PCI card in a standard tower case with a passive PCI backplane. 3. As a PCI card inside a PC as a kind of daughterboard. The final price for the board isn't certain yet. For the first 25 preordered boards the fixed cost has been set to Euro557,- (+VAT and shipping). To be able to start with the production of the hardware we need 25 preorders which are fixed through a advanced payment of Euro200,-. Subsequent to that we can begin the prototype production and start with software development. Therefore the first 25 people preordering would then need only to pay the Euro357,- remaining. As much of our work as possible will be published under free licenses. Going forward, we will be continuously reporting further developments at http://acp.atari.org/news.html ACP in April 2009

2008-12-15 Atari-Coldfire initiative from Switzerland and Austria

According to new impulses from Switzerland and Austria, since the beginning of december 2008 several developers are contacted personally. The aim is to find out which skills and how many support-possibilities in the Atari-Community are in existance. Afterwards can be decided if and how the project can continue, or if it can get started again together.

Atari Coldfire Project Archive

You will find here the news related to our first project which took place between 2002 and 2008. ACP News Archive: http://acp.atari.org/archive