eeprom-programmer VS rosco_m68k

Those chips can be a little finicky. I have some different code from Ben’s that may be useful. https://github.com/yoppeh/eeprom-programmer

Building your own EEPROM programmer can be fun and a good learning experience. Ben has a video for that too. I have some Arduino software that will let you xmodem a binary image straight to the EEPROM.

Indeed! An eventual goal of Onramp is to bootstrap in freestanding so we can boot directly into the VM without an OS. This eliminates all binaries except for the firmware of the machine. The stage0/live-bootstrap team has already accomplished this so we know it's possible. Eliminating firmware is platform-dependent and mostly outside the scope of Onramp but it's certainly something I'd like to do as a related bootstrap project.

A modern UEFI is probably a million lines of code so there's a huge firmware trust surface there. One way to eliminate this would be to bootstrap on much simpler hardware. A rosco_m68k [1] is an example, one that has requires no third party firmware at all aside from the non-programmable microcode of the processor. (A Motorola 68010 is thousands of times slower than a modern processor so the bootstrap would take days, but that's fine, I can wait!)

Of course there's still the issue of trusting that the data isn't modified getting into the machine. For example you have to trust the tools you're using to flash EEPROM chips, or if you're using an SD card reader you have to trust its firmware. You also have to trust that your chips are legit, that the Motorola 68010 isn't a modern fake that emulates it while compromising it somehow. If you had the resources you'd probably want to x-ray the whole board at a minimum to make sure the chips are real. As for trusting ROM, I have some crazy ideas on how to get data into the machine in a trustable way, but I'm not quite ready to embarrass myself by saying them out loud yet :)

[1]: https://rosco-m68k.com/

You could build your own Motorola 68k computer:

https://rosco-m68k.com

(Caveat: I’m the founder of the open source project and I own the company, so obviously biased - other options in this space are available :) ).

Nice! I’d be interested to see how it handles https://github.com/rosco-m68k/rosco_m68k , it’s a mixed software / hardware repo, with a lot of code in assembler and C (for an old platform). Might be a challenge?

Probably not exactly what you’re looking for (since you mention “outdated”) but there are similar projects with 16 and 32 bit architectures, e.g. https://github.com/rosco-m68k/rosco_m68k

(Disclosure: I’m the designer and lead developer on that project).

Maybe the rosco-m68k computer kit would be up your alley. If you want to stay in z80 land, there's the omega MSX2 clone but I don't see any kits, so you'd have to get the boards and parts yourself.

Hi. The 68000 is an "old school CPU", like the 6502 and has no programmable memory inside the chip itself. To operate a 68000 system there generally needs to be some external ROM and RAM chips (and the type can vary). However, the same as with Ben Eater's 6502 and 8-bit kits, the TL866-II will likely be useful to program EPROMs and GALs on a 68000 setup also (it sure has been on the 68000 single board computer I have been tinkering with recently).

I am working on a similar project Xosera, aimed at adding video to a 68000 era home-brew system (the rosco_m68k). It is basically all working and there is a prototype PCB made. I am just finalizing "blitter" unit design and hopefully I'll have room for some "Amiga style" audio.