The C128 has a dedicated group of followers and for good reason. The machine took what was great about the C64 and made it even better. It has full C64 backward compatibility but also features an 80-column output and CP/M support. It came in fully integrated versions like the C128DCR, with a built-in 1571 floppy drive and power supply. However, it never sold as well as the C64, and those who own them now are always looking for C128-specific mods that can take advantage of the increased RAM and other features that made the C128 so powerful.
Introducing the Idun cartridge for the C128; a Raspberry Pi interface packing a Parallax Propeller chip and bus buffers. The idea is to breathe new life into the C128. While it can do things like emulate ROM cartridges to play existing games, with a Pi Zero (or even a Pi 4!) attached to the C128 it can enable so much more. It could be a Wifi modem; a RAM Expansion Unit with 512MB of RAM (or more!); a fully self-contained C128 assembly/C development environment to help speed programming and debugging; an extremely powerful co-processor that the C128 can delegate processor-intensive tasks to; the list goes on and on.
While many of these ideas aren’t concrete yet, the hope is by releasing the design and code, people will contribute back and help build more awesome tools for the C128. The GitHub repository contains all the work done so far and is the place where you should go if you’re interested in learning more. Also, check out the demo video on YouTube below to see what can be done so far. Lua support is being developed; currently, there is an API reference showing everything that can be done so far.
