Toni Westbrook dot Com

The Joy of Computer Science and Engineering

For whatever reason, Digikey and Mouser’s supply of the Atmega8-16 MCU is completely out of stock. I’ve seen differing reports whether this chip is End-Of-Life’d, but that certainly seems like it might be the case – neither site indicates that a future stock will be available. With this in mind, all new PSX64s produced will be using the Atmega168 instead. Really, this will functionally make no difference. The 168 can run faster and has more memory, but I’m driving it with the same 16 MHz crystal and with the same code. And luckily, the two chips are pin compatible, so no rework of the PCB is necessary.

The Atmega168 does have different fuses and slightly different architecture, and the firmware needed to be recompiled. I made a PSX64 with the ATmega168 tonight, and recompiled the firmware, and life is good. If you’re building a new board with an ATmega168, or (in the future) need to reflash your PSX64, the new revision B firmware is available here. (i.e. psx64fw11.hex is version 1.1 for the ATmega8, and psx64fw11b.hex is version 1.1 for the ATmega168).

I decided to spruce up the hand written labels with a little MS Word mail merge label action. Not the fanciest in the world, but a little nicer looking!

With Valve releasing Portal 2 fairly soon, and after realizing a SID version of “Still Alive (Portal Credits)” existed, I realized I had no choice but to make it a bonus track and post a video of it in action.

This and all tracks are available at Synthetic Dreams.

(PS – If you haven’t played Portal yet – go and do it now. It’s a fantastic game, and a fantastic ending song.)