Heaven On Hearth-MEGA65 DevKit
The MEGA65 project has been thoroughly covered on this blog since last year. A first article was published to introduce the topic, then a second one refocused on the subject when donations went over the top and allowed for the case injection mould tooling to be financed. Now, in less than a year, the development kits have been sent to the devs. Courtesy of Stefan Vogt, we are here for an up-close and personal look at this beauty.
For those new to the scene, the MEGA65 is the attempt to relive the Commodore65 computer, a machine that was meant to be the last and most powerful of the entire Commodore’s 8-bit range but that never saw the light, let aside for a handful of prototypes. This new implementation of the original prototype, built around a FPGA-based computer, promises to take us back to the future exactly like the Spectrum Next is currently doing for the other end of the barricade (just kidding. I will buy both!).
Without further ado, let’s delve into the kit and let’s have fun!
Here are the bottom plate and the drive …
Mainboard and its case, with drive mounted …
Details of the board and of the keyboard. Actually, that keyboard is really something!
Finally, the devkit completely assembled. It looks ACE!
And now, let there be light! I am so envious … 🙂
Now, if you think that all of this is just an expensive toy for geeks and nerds (which I proudly am, by the way) let me point out that Tristam Island by Hugo Labrande is already running on a MEGA65 (article here), and so will Hibernated2 by Stefan Vogt. I cannot close this article without thanking Paul Gardner-Stephen and everyone else at MEGA65.org for making this possible.
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Will it be possible to hook up a floppy emulator (like the HxC2001) instead of a real floppy drive?
I don’t have details on this yet, but this promises to have a lot of “workaround” to load all the data you need.
Cheers
I need a Mega 65 in my life. the Commodore 64 Mini/Maxi was a bit of a let down by the Spectrum Next is a great machine.
Despite the great specifications of the machine two years later when I look at the files section of their website I still mostly see text adventures. I would like to have one of these computers one day but at the moment the C64 scene produces games with better graphics for the older and weaker hardware.