[HN Gopher] Bare Metal Emulation on the Raspberry Pi - Commodore 64
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       Bare Metal Emulation on the Raspberry Pi - Commodore 64
        
       Author : bane
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2023-11-15 04:56 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (accentual.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (accentual.com)
        
       | omnibrain wrote:
       | If you don't need a video showing the hardware and discussing all
       | the details, you can find the emulator here:
       | https://accentual.com/bmc64/
        
         | dang wrote:
         | That's probably a better (or at least more canonical) URL for
         | the project than youtube, so I've put it at the top. Thanks!
         | 
         | The submitted URL was
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53wHr415LPU and people will
         | probably want to look at both.
        
       | indigodaddy wrote:
       | There is a back and forth in the YT comments where one commenter
       | insists that Linux OS is still running under the hood...
       | 
       | So the Linux OS never boots, correct? It's booting directly from
       | the c64 bin so to speak? Feels very Justine Tunneyish almost..
        
         | xcv123 wrote:
         | Correct. It is booting from the BMC64 image.
        
           | indigodaddy wrote:
           | And it doesn't look like there is any Linux or supporting
           | Linux elements embedded into that image I don't think? (From
           | what I saw in the page dang posted/updated)
        
             | cmrdporcupine wrote:
             | Correct, there is no linux.
        
             | xcv123 wrote:
             | It is open source:
             | 
             | https://github.com/randyrossi/bmc64
             | 
             | No Linux kernel there
             | 
             | https://github.com/randyrossi/bmc64/blob/master/kernel.cpp
        
               | indigodaddy wrote:
               | That is pretty friggin awesome. And even more awesome
               | that you can just copy over whatever d64s to the image
               | that I assume are easily accessible in the c64
               | environment once booted. I was considering trying
               | something like Combian64 but this seems way tighter.
               | _Edit_ ah too bad actually was looking for something that
               | would work with my pi400 but I guess bmc64 only works up
               | to pi3. If anyone could port bmc64 to pi4 or make it work
               | that would be amazing (unfortunately not I as I don't
               | have the technical know-how)
        
               | rusk wrote:
               | Unfortunate the Pi 4 is more like a PC with a few layers
               | of turtles between the user and the hardware. Up until
               | then the pi were more like a microcontroller with a UI
               | layer atop. You could peel that back and get at the raw
               | goodies. The newer pi is vastly more complex and requires
               | all these dark processes and proprietary firmware blobs
               | beneath the OS to make it go.
        
               | indigodaddy wrote:
               | Ah interesting thanks for the info and context
        
               | rzzzt wrote:
               | The bare metal library is mentioned in the repo in
               | different places, but might be worth adding a link to it
               | as well, it's Circle: https://github.com/rsta2/circle
        
       | cmrdporcupine wrote:
       | This is my good friend Randy's project. I don't believe he's
       | working on it anymore, as his main project right now is his FPGA
       | re-implementation of the VIC-II chip.
       | 
       | http://accentual.com/vicii-kawari/
       | 
       | I like to think of BMC64 as a "unikernel" C64 emulator.
       | Effectively it's VICE forked to run on the Circle library. The
       | theoretical advantages are a) fast boot times b) low input device
       | and display latency.
        
       | ryandrake wrote:
       | Very cool project! I've been getting more and more interested in
       | "bare metal" projects, and one day am just going to dive right
       | in.
       | 
       | There's something weirdly _unsatisfying_ about building a
       | Raspberry Pi appliance that boots to Linux just to do a Thing,
       | when it could just boot to the Thing.
        
         | rusk wrote:
         | Sounds like you want ESP! Check out ESPhome and Tasmota
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | See also, PiTubeDirect[1], which runs on a Raspberry Pi which you
       | have plugged into the second processor port of a BBC Micro[2],
       | and turns the Pi into emulator for a number of different
       | processors, notably an arbitrarily fast 6502, a Z80, or an 80286.
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/hoglet67/PiTubeDirect
       | 
       | [2]:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Secon...
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-15 23:00 UTC)