Acorn Atom HDMI

[@morefunmakingit2]

I have just had a lovely telephone conversation with David and we have found that the problem is a dodgy reset circuit. Needs to be slowed down. Computer crashes on power up, but pressing reset and it all works fine! I will look into a reset modification to slow down the timing a little.

[@ownpj]

Replace r38 with a higher value. Also i bet c11 needs replacing too.

[@stevvieb]

Don't forget that you need more amps when you lower the voltage . 8v at 1.8A is 14.4 watts 5v at 1.8A is only 9 watts and then the Pi needs some.

[@bobbus_74]

It doesn't get much more old school than the Acorn Atom. That's some proper computing history, right there.

[@VintageImitationParts]

RGBtoHDMI is a fantastic project and grown so far from where it started. From little Acorns and all that! Nice video :)

[@davldhilton987]

Acorn Atom My First Ever Computer Loved It

[@Phil-Sands]

Talking about scrapping stuff that is valuable today, when I worked at SKY I had a few installers on loan from Washington come up to Livingston to help out on installations, one of the guys used to service Commodore Amiga's and dumped a whole load of new motherboars into the skip; oh how I regret not pulling them out at the time!

[@morefunmakingit2]

All tech goes through it's worthless phase. It's what makes what's left now even more desirable 😁

[@originalbrucesmith]

ooo dry solder joint.. some where.

[@stevetodd7383]

I think the Atom was my second machine (after a MK14). The weak point of the design, and what should be replaced by modern hardware, is the 6847 video controller. Firstly it didn’t understand PAL and 50Hz (you’d need to mess with the vertical hold on a UK TV to get it to lock). Secondly it couldn’t handle dual access by both CPU and display (you’d get snow unless you waited for frame blanking). Thirdly it was pants at text generation (32 x 16 chars in upper case only). A modern FPGA replacement that plugs in via a daughter card should be able to fix all that, plus give HDMI directly.

[@kentjohansson6937]

Sure and then replace the 6502 with a Thread Ripper

[@stevetodd7383]

@ removing snow, making it compatible with a modern monitor and making text mode a little more usable is in no way like replacing the CPU with a modern multi-core monster. To start with it should be able to run period software without modification. Secondly it’s likely that you’re going to be using a modern monitor anyway (CRTs are becoming harder to find and maintain, plus they need much more storage space). Thirdly giving the Atom something like a 40 x 25 line text display is pretty standard for the period (a Commodore PET managed 40 x 25 back in 1977, complete with an 8 bit (modified) ASCII character set. As I said, I owned one of these when it was new, and know full well what its weaknesses were for the period.

[@kentjohansson6937]

@@stevetodd7383 Sure your correct. I was just trying to make a point that Owning and using a Atom is at least for me nostalgic. I'm trying to keep my upgrades to features that was available in the 80s