FPGABee

FPGABee

An FPGA implementation of a Microbee

FPGABee is an implementation of a Microbee - an Australian made computer that was popular in the 1980's. As a teenager I developed and sold Microbee games, so when I decided to teach myself about FPGA's - building a Microbee seemed the obvious choice.

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FPGABee at Boot Screen

FPGABee Overview

Here's a quick overview:

  • Similar functionality to a monochrome, cassette based Microbee.
  • Runs on a Digilent Nexys3 FPGA Development Board.
  • Uses OpenCore T80 for Z80 CPU
  • 32K RAM, 28K ROM, 4K Video RAM/Character ROM
  • Partly functional 6545 CRTC implementation - cursor, keyboard, video generation
  • Connects to VGA monitor at 640x480 resolution with the Microbee output (512x256) displayed centered.
  • Uses PC keyboard with natural character mapping.
  • Programmable Character Graphics (PCG)
  • Speaker
  • Cassette Load (Save not implemented yet) from FAT32 formatted SD card.
  • Console Mode for control over peripheral functions - read more.

Check out some more photos...