Hi! Author here, this has been a fun side project for me, It's pretty much finished but I keep coming back to it to do one more thing.
This project is a CPU written in VHDL that executes Forth. It's based on the J1 processor, but with a few new instructions and interrupt handling.
Also included in the project is a VT-100 terminal emulator (emulator is not quite the right word here) written in VHDL, which some of you may find useful. It supports a fairly large subset of the ANSI escape sequence commands.
I originally wrote a smaller compiler for a Forth like language in C, but I've since rewritten the tool chain so the eForth image running on the target is built with a more traditional meta-compiler.
I always wonder why so many projects use the MDA/VGA font. Is it that it's readily available in a HDL-friendly format?
If that's so, I'd love to translate a couple popular open source fonts. Terminus is my usual default console favorite (mostly because the bitmap x3270 font is not in a friendly format).
The project actually uses Terminus by default now. That video of the system up and running is quite old, I should make a new one. You can switch between Terminus (8x12, KOI8-R) and VGA Font (Latin-0). There's space for two more fonts in the Block RAM - if you wanted to make a new you're welcome to!
I'm far less urged to translate the 3270 font (I'm a huge fan of it) if you are relying on Terminus. It'd probably be better to support other fonts DEC terminals supported. I'll dig a bit into that. :-)
That's great, raise or ticket or send me an email if you find anything useful. It's not too much work for me to convert things into a usable format if I have a BDF file (8x12 only - anything else would require hardware changes!) for the font.
I'm very fond of double width and height, but the DEC terminals implemented double width by halving the pixel clock rather than a proper font. Minitel did it right.
This project is a CPU written in VHDL that executes Forth. It's based on the J1 processor, but with a few new instructions and interrupt handling.
Also included in the project is a VT-100 terminal emulator (emulator is not quite the right word here) written in VHDL, which some of you may find useful. It supports a fairly large subset of the ANSI escape sequence commands.
I originally wrote a smaller compiler for a Forth like language in C, but I've since rewritten the tool chain so the eForth image running on the target is built with a more traditional meta-compiler.
Here's a video https://howerj.github.io/h2/107.mp4 of the project running (I've since added color support to the VT-100).
If you type 'make gui-run' it should build and run the graphical emulator for the device. (or just 'make run' for the command line simulator).
You can play a little game by typing:
:)