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The WeeCee – Tiny Vortex86-Based DOS Gaming PC
- marcodiego 5y agoI wonder if, with an open source bios, this could achieve RYF certification.
- kcb 5y agoThe craziest thing is this guy built a soundcard from schematic to pcb in hand in a section of a youtube video.
- nickt 5y agovia LGRs video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USHvvSbYmJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USHvvSbYmJA rasteri also did a couple of build videos: Part 1: https://youtu.be/aJEp4ZUG7BI https://youtu.be/aJEp4ZUG7BI Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1E2vjpcRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1E2vjpcRo
- tmaly 5y agoThat forum is what looks even more interesting than the hardware being reviewed in that post.
- gattilorenz 5y agoIt is. It's also a community of packrats that have a copy of every driver and bios under the sun, including huge dumps of FTP archives that have been lost to the sands of time (e.g. NEC or Acer's support FTP)
- fouc 5y ago> It's a mini PC capable of running MS-DOS and Windows off a MicroSD card that plays well with tons of classic PC games and software, boasting Sound Blaster Pro and Wave Blaster/GM compatibility, along with SXGA 32-bit color graphics with VGA out https://circuitmaker.com/Projects/Details/rasteri/weeCee https://circuitmaker.com/Projects/Details/rasteri/weeCee
- snvzz 5y agoA pain re: no kicad or PDF schematics. I just gave up on looking at them.
- tyingq 5y agoThe SOM datasheet without having to fill out a form: https://tech.icop.com.tw/manual/som304rd-vi_datasheet.pdf https://tech.icop.com.tw/manual/som304rd-vi_datasheet.pdf
- mrweasel 5y agoVortex86 is just as interesting as the WeeCee. Surely they must have an x86 licens, where did they get that? They don’t appear to have a license for AMD64, but could they get one?
- zozbot234 5y agoVortex86 implements i586, which should surely be IP-unencumbered by now? Why would they need a license?
- shakna 5y ago> Vortex86 implements i586, which should surely be IP-unencumbered by now? Even if you go from the launch date and not the last errata, the i586 architecture is only 28 years old. In today's world of copyright, that's practically an infant. To be clear of most patents, you generally need at least thirty years, and copyrights are generally more than twice that number. You will probably require a license from Intel. (Though whether or not they care enough to enforce things is another matter entirely).
- badsectoracula 5y agoI can understand patents (though i thought it'd be 17-20 years, not 30) but why would they need to worry about copyright to make new implementation of the x86 instruction set?
- R0b0t1 5y agoUsing AMD as an example you shouldn't? But the oracle ruling calls that into question. An instruction set is an interface. But, that ruling is extremely whack as it means nobody but the ISA originator can make an assembler, for example.
- monocasa 5y agoThe final oracle ruling is that it was fair use. That being said, back in the day there was concern about all of that, hence why a Z80 is binary compatible with an 8080, but has different mnemonics. It's all LD this ST that, as opposed to the 8080's MOV.
- ryanmercer 5y agoSaw this via LGR's patreon earlier this week, I want one so bad.
- Teknoman117 5y agoAfter watching the LGR video on this, I was left thinking about his comment about the lack of 3D support. I figure this is due to the fact that the WeeCee uses components that are still manufactured, and no 3D chipset from that era is still in production. There's a ton of VGA clones with VBE 3 support for all sorts of industrial and IPMI purposes. I was left wondering about the complexity of implementing a Voodoo 3 or early GeForce class card in a modern FPGA. They've got the logic density, memory bandwidth, and hundreds of hardware MACs. Compared to all the other technical hurdles, I keep thinking the most difficult task is actually getting ahold of the DirectX driver implementation manuals and references. A $200 Xilinx part has 700 25x18 hardware MAC units, a couple hundred thousand logic cells, support for about 10 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and hardware PCIe support (use a PCI to PCIe bridge chip, if those are still around). Things like the Graphics Gremlin and Snark Barker give me hope that some people are out there who'd care. That and enough people who have the required skills and the desired to implement a graphics card from 20 to 25 years ago for antiquated operating systems.
- rasz 5y agoThere is 3D in the graphic chip, but no drivers. There was a short period they even tried competing in consumer gaming market https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ZUyRWvHb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ZUyRWvHb8
- gchadwick 5y agoI think it's technically feasible, but a fair chunk of work, especially if you want wide compatibility (either presenting the same hardware interface as a real card, no doubt with lots of reverse engineering to do or doing your own interface and writing a DX driver for it and then testing it across lots of games). It's also not going to be cheap, on top of the FPGA you'll want a PCB and support chips. Charging a few hundred dollars for retro hardware replacements is feasible but for now at least actual retro 3D cards can be had for less money. So an interesting project, but I don't think we've reached the point it's interesting enough for someone to attempt. I think there's far more interest in FPGA replication of full consoles right now (check out the MiSTer project https://github.com/MiSTer-devel https://github.com/MiSTer-devel). There's lots of excitement around the upcoming PSX and Saturn cores for that. I suspect a Voodoo/GeForce replica would be a similar amount of work but far fewer people interested in having it.
- iszomer 5y agoIt was particularly amusing to see the Windows installation identify it as a Cyrix* processor.
- mrtweetyhack 5y agothat's a fine paperweight
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThis is awesome but I wish it had 3dfx or Voodoo support. What are my options?
- Underphil 5y agoBuild a PC with a 3DFX card.
- wyclif 5y agoI used to think the Vogons forum was about DOS, but it looks like it's about a lot more than that. There's no "About" section on the site.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoVery old games on new systems
- wyclif 5y agoThanks, you're the first person who's ever told me that's what it means!
- bingmobo 5y agoHoly crap this thing is awesome.... I would gladly pay ~$400 for a kit of this. Please someone with skills make this a reality! Great job rasteri!