IBM PC/XT workalike project

[technix]

I have found all chips for an IBM PC/XT workalike. This is going to be a retro-style design challenge.

Design goal:

* Single-side load only.
* Preferably double-side board.
* No larger than ATX form factor. Should the size match a standard PC motherboard size (e.g. 170x170 mini-ITX,) match the mechanical requirements too.
* Follow IBM PC/XT architecture as close as possible

Chips to be used:

* 80C88 CPU
* Socket for FPU
* 82C84 clock generator
* 82C88 bus controller
* 3x 74HC573 bus latch
* 2x 82C37 DMA
* 2x 82C59 PIC
* 2x 82C53 PIT
* 2x AS7C4096 512k x8 SRAM
* AT28C256 64k x8 EEPROM (BIOS)
* CH395 Ethernet interface
* CH375 USB Interface with mass storage driver
* HD44780-compatible LCD module
* EPM7128S CPLD as bus controller

[ale500]

Nice project !

I always thought that a SRAM-based PC would fly compared with what we had in the 80s, 90s. I have been toying myself with such a build but FPGA based , there are tow or three ready to used x86 processors, with external SRAM one could have some real fun.

I VGA controller would also be a nice idea.

[technix]

I could not find a VGA controller. (I have another project that also needs a similar controller...)

Depend on now new your FPGA is, you may have to use a more modern chip like:

* AMD Am486DX4 processor
* 3.3V/1.8V dual VDDIO FPGA as combined north and south bridge,
* A single DDR3 SODIMM slot for a single 4GB stick, operating at either DDR3-1333 or DDR3-1600,
* 24 PCIe channels organized into a PCIe x16 full size slot (for GPU,) a PCIe x4 M.2 slot (for NVMe SSD,) a PCIe x1 M.2 slot (for Wi-Fi,) and onboard PCIe peripherals (Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.1 and Sound, PCIe x1 each)
* 32MB NOR Flash to hold the UEFI firmware, derived from the TiernoCore project

This board would be able to run some flavor of Linux, and thanks to the modern GPU offloading multimedia operations, may be used for light multimedia purposes.