Tactical 6502/portable

My 2020 project.

Let me call it #6502portable.

It closes the loop between my starting point in 1986 and now. Like a Terminator time line, just backwards.

It's an Atari 800XL on a USB powerbank, video output captured into a Raspi on a 2nd powerbank.

Visuals inspired by Alien movie where computers look like they should. Released in 1979, the year of Atari 800.

I have rarely felt more satisfied.

#retrocomputing #retrohardware #atari8bit #cyberdeck

Atari 800XL in a box, portable

Goal

Work on the Atari with the real feeling. But be independent of the place in the living room.

The idea

Two epiphanies: there is an Atari 800XL power cord to be fed with USB on the other side. Power bank anyone? And there are video grabbers to provide captured video as USB device readable by VLC. The rest is history. Display on a Raspi. Put everything into a mobile suitcase.

Challenges

1. Power support via USB is fragile when fed from a power bank. Every additional USB hub or cable makes it worse. Especially when driving raspi and display from a single powerbank.

2. Cable routing in limited space. Big respect to the first laptop builders.

Where's the punk?

If this is cyber then where is the punk, I hear you ask.

My grandfather was a carpenter grandmaster. When he tried to teach me when I was 10 he quickly gave up - I was not qualified. Carving the front plate from wood anyway nearly 40 years later - that's my punk.

VLC cmd line

vlc --crop=444x271+20+52 --video-wallpaper --aspect-ratio=4:3 --no-video-title-show v4l:///dev/video0

Open topics

1. No sound yet. Does the monitor output it, too?

2. GPIO not yet accessible at the front plate.

3. The video sometimes glitches. Interferences? Weak power? Looks great but irritates real work.

Diary in pictures

Power from USB:

Monitor to s-video:

Video grabber:

Raspi 3B+ and 7-inch touchscreen:

Atari 800XL:

Powerbank:

Sio2sd from Lotharek, SD card with disk images:

Raspi 3B durign prototyping, later 3B+, and back to 3B again because 3B+ takes too much power and struggles at boot:

syslog video grabber:

/dev/video:

VLC:

Proof of concept:

ATMAS-II booting:

ATMAS-II:

Suitcase:

Front plate, initial max size:

Front plate, shrunk for deeper position:

Screews to wood, glue to plastics:

Heavy Metal, we are in space after all:

Foam nearly ruined from too many experimenting:

Protect the innocent:

Wear a mask:

Thin foam base:

If in doubt use the big powerbank that normally starts The Last V8:

Stencils:

Inner usb hub, soldered switch to be shut off devices:

Big switch to disconnect inner usb hub (where video grabber), eg. for power saving:

GPIO prepared, but not yet outside:

Additional keyboard mountable for longer Raspi work:

Cutting stencils manually:

Blutooth mini keyboard place:

DATA, POWER, USB OFF:

Mig Alley Ace:

License

(c) 2020 eiZen https://mastodon.social/@eiZen

Instructions, text and images can be used freely.

Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0