CERBERUS 2100, Bernardo Kastrup’s Multi-Headed Academic Laptop, Is Now on Sale

Bernardo Kastrup’s CERBERUS 2100, an academic single-board laptop that places a MOS Know-how 5602 and a Zilog Z80 on a single board alongside an AVR and a number of advanced programmable logic units (CPLDs), is now in the stores — due to a partnership with with Bulgarian open {hardware} specialist Olimex.

“CERBERUS 2100 is an open supply {hardware} and software program academic multi-processor eight-bit laptop, that includes each Z80 and 6502 CPUs, plus an AVR processor as I/O [Input/Output] controller,” Olimex founder Tsevetan Usunov writes of the gadget. “Constructed with CPLDs, CERBERUS 2100 is absolutely programmable even with respect to its {hardware}, on the stage of particular person gates and flip-flops.”

The design was first unveiled by Bernardo Kastrup late final 12 months, following dissatisfaction with how computing is historically taught. “Yr after 12 months I used to be taught info concept, digital sign processing, management concept and whatnot, however not how a whole laptop is put collectively from scratch,” Kastrup wrote on the time. “Apparently, that wasn’t thought-about essential, as in our skilled lives we had been anticipated to work solely on, and with, high-level components — not the entire, and never from scratch.”

The CERBERUS 2100 is Kastrup’s reply, and the gadget he wished he’d had again then: providing the power to experiment with each the MOS Know-how 6502 and Zilog Z80 processors, competing powerhouses of Eighties house computing, together with dripping proper down into how the {hardware} works to virtually the transistor stage. “Furthermore,” Kastrup provides, “it permits for experimentation at each firmware and {hardware} ranges, because the system is constructed round three in-system programmable CPLDs [Complex Programmable Logic Devices] and an AVR I/O [Input/Output] controller.”

Kastrup launched the machine’s design and supply code on GitHub beneath the permissive MIT license, and promised a manufacturing run of assembled boards to observe — and has partnered with Olimex on that very factor. “The preliminary batch of CERBERUS 2100 [boards] is assembled, examined, and works as anticipated,” Usunov says, with orders open now for instant transport.

The CERBERUS 2100 could be ordered on the Olimex internet store at €219, whereas the design stays obtainable beneath the MIT license on the undertaking’s GitHub repository for many who would reasonably construct their very own.