Retrocomputing on KittenLabs

LPT printer emulator

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Warning:

While this project does work and has been tested against a number of devices, the firmware is very quick & dirty with hardcoded parameters and missing error handling. Use in production environments is discouraged.

What is it?

Old computers, machines and test equipment often expect printers to be directly connected via a parallel port / LPT / IEEE 1284. In the modern day, this is impractical. Having a single printer for each device is expensive, takes up a lot of space and they need to be in physical proximity.
It might also be preferrable to get a virtual printout as a .pdf file instead of a physical piece of paper.

PC104 ISA adapter

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

These mechanical adapter PCBs allow the use of PC104 and Vortex86DX X-ISA single board computers on an ISA backplane.
Such adapters are available commercially for industrial use at extreme prices (100$+), for simple passive adapters.

PC104 adapter

Vortex86DX adapter

IrDA to RS232

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

A small PCB, which can receive RS232 over IrDA/IrCOMM (for example from Palm PDAs, Nokia phones, old laptops) and relay it to a RS232 device.

Modded ISDN terminal adapter

This ELSA MicroLink ISDN terminal adapter was modified to include such a IrDA adapter PCB.
It can now be used wirelessly from a Palm PDA to sync data without having to connect it to a PC.

ISA8019 NIC

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

ISA NE2000-compatible network card
Using RTL8019 chipset, 10Base-T full duplex ethernet

Can be configured via jumpers, EEPROM or full ISA PnP.
Compatible with 8-bit XT machines.

Optimized for automated assembly at JLC.

Plug & Play

ISA-over-USB

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

This project allows the use of ISA extension cards on a modern computer over a USB interface.
The main project goal was to learn about the ISA bus, not to build a polished product.

USB limitations

USB has inherent limits to the minimum latency, defined by the frame timing in the USB specification.
This means that a USB 1.1 attached device will only ever be able to handle 1000 transfers per second.
USB 2.0 increases this limit to 8000 transfers per second (125μs frame time), which is still way to slow for most applications.

CMM2 PCB

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What is it?

The Colour Maximite 2 is a hobbyist computer, mimicking the home computers of the 80s, running BASIC.

Because the original PCB (and seperate STM32 devboard) were expensive and hard to obtain, we designed this machine-assembly ready PCB.

Wolfenstein

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Linux on STM32 (no-MMU)

tSYS managed to get Linux No-MMU on STM32 working. This setup actually uses the pata-gpio driver for its root filesystem.

Retrocomputing on KittenLabs

LPT printer emulator

Warning:

What is it?

PC104 ISA adapter

What is it?

PC104 adapter

Vortex86DX adapter

IrDA to RS232

What is it?

Modded ISDN terminal adapter

ISA8019 NIC

What is it?

Plug & Play

Links

ISA-over-USB

What is it?

USB limitations

CMM2 PCB

What is it?

Wolfenstein

Linux on STM32 (no-MMU)