BoxLambda is an open-source project with the goal of creating a retro-style FPGA-based microcomputer. The microcomputer serves as a platform for software and RTL experimentation.

BoxLambda is a software-hardware cross-over project. The plan is to provide room for experimentation both on the FPGA RTL side and on the software side.

Key Goals

• Create a sandbox for experimenting with software and (FPGA) HW.

  • Simplicity: It should be easy to jump in and do something: create, hack, tinker.
    • It should be doable for a single person to develop a good understanding of the entire system, software and hardware.
    • Deterministic Behavior: By design, it should be clear how long an operation, be it an instruction or a DMA transfer, is going to take.
    • Single User/Single Tasking OS booting to a console shell.
  • Create a Modular Architecture allowing for a mix-and-match of software and hardware components.
    • Support for partial FPGA reconfiguration.

• Target Hardware is Digilent's Arty-A7

• The computer should support the following peripherals:

  • Keyboard
  • Mouse (optional)
  • Joystick (optional)
  • Serial port
  • SD card storage
  • VGA Display
  • Audio output

• Sound and graphics should be sufficient to support retro-style 2D gameplay.

Project Blog

https://epsilon537.github.io/boxlambda/.

Project Documentation

https://boxlambda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.

Setup and Build Instructions

https://boxlambda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation-and-test-builds/.

Important Note

This project is still in a unreleased state. Until further notice, everything you see here is work-in-progress, in flux, incomplete.