In 1979, Atari launched the Atari 400 and 800, groundbreaking residence computer systems that included customized graphics and sound chips, 4 joystick ports, and the flexibility to run probably the most superior residence video video games of their period. These machines, which retailed for $549 and $999, respectively, represented a leap in consumer-friendly private computing, with their modular design and serial I/O bus that presaged USB. Now, 46 years later, a hobbyist has shrunk down the system {hardware} to a dimension that may have appeared like science fiction within the Nineteen Seventies.
Polish engineer Piotr “Osa” Ostapowicz just lately unveiled “Atarino,” which would be the world’s smallest 8-bit Atari laptop re-creation, in accordance with retro computing website Atariteca. Your complete system—processor, graphics chips, sound {hardware}, and reminiscence controllers—suits on a module measuring simply 2×1.5 centimeters (about 0.79×0.59 inches), which is roughly the dimensions of a postage stamp.
Ostapowicz’s creation reimplements the traditional Atari XL/XE structure utilizing trendy FPGA (field-programmable gate array) know-how. In contrast to software program emulators that simulate outdated {hardware} (and trendy recreations that run them, just like the Atari 400 Mini console) on an entire laptop system of one other structure, Atarino reproduces the unique Atari elements faithfully on the logic stage, permitting it to run classic software program whereas sustaining compatibility with authentic peripherals.
Credit score:
Piotr Ostapowicz
“The present challenge is just not strictly a clone of Atari however mainly, nicely, I am forming a machine that’s suitable with the Atari 8-bit laptop itself, however it was created on the idea of the framework that I created a while in the past,” Ostapowicz informed Atari On-line PL in a January 2024 YouTube interview.
An assortment of a few of the Atari 8-bit laptop programs launched within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s.
Credit score:
Atari
The challenge, which started over a decade in the past and was first publicly demonstrated in December 2023, features a 6502C processor, ANTIC and GTIA graphics chips, POKEY sound chip, and reminiscence controllers onto a single Lattice UP5K FPGA chip. Regardless of its tiny dimension, the system can run at clock speeds as much as 31 MHz—far quicker than the unique {hardware}’s 1.79 MHz.
Smaller, quicker, and positioned for future initiatives
Whereas Atarino maintains broad compatibility with traditional Atari software program, Ostapowicz says he has enhanced the unique design in a number of methods. For instance, the 6502 processor core follows the bodily chip specs however provides new directions. The reminiscence system makes use of impartial channels relatively than the unique’s “cycle stealing” method (the place the graphics chip briefly halts the CPU to entry reminiscence), bettering efficiency.
