CERBERUS 2080™

CERBERUS 2080™ is a complete, innovative, fully-functional, multi-processor 8-bit microcomputer. Featured on HACKADAY, it is meant as an open-source educational platform for students of computer engineering and advanced hobbyists, supporting both the Z80 and the 65C02 CPUs. As such, it has been designed correctly so to provide a proper example. Unlike many hobby computers, CERBERUS is a self-contained system and rock-solid in terms of robustness and reliability. It's also pretty darn fast!

CERBERUS gives the user direct, convenient and unrestricted access to the hardware. It demystifies computers by showing in detail how one is built, from the gate-level up.

CERBERUS's architecture illustrates how a multi-processor system can be implemented. Its design was done explicitly at the gate-level, with no high-level hardware synthesis tools. The chipset of 3 custom ICs is implemented by in-system programmable CPLDs.

CERBERUS’s architecture is clean and highly didactic, no ugly compromises having been made for cost-reduction purposes. It can be regarded as an advanced, elegant successor to classical late-70s microcomputers such as the ZX80, TRS-80 and PET 2001.

If you wonder what you can actually do with CERBERUS, beyond learning computer engineering, there is quite some software development for it, some ongoing, some already available. Check out the project's official website at: https://www.thebyteattic.com/p/cerberus-2080.html

You can find CERBERUS 2080™'s complete manual and bill of materials on my Github page, where the entire design can be freely downloaded under a very permissive license. There is a discussion group on Facebook dedicated to all things CERBERUS. Finally, here is a video playlist chronicling the entire design and build process of CERBERUS, where I provide in-depth commentary on every design step and decision.

Only 5V, through-hole technology is used, so advanced hobbyists should be able to build CERBERUS on their own without problems. If you are a beginner in electronics, however, CERBERUS 2080™ should not be your first project.

You can buy a CERBERUS 2080 kit, with pre-programmed CPLDs and microcontroller, from the Home Computer Museum. All you need to do is solder the components, which are all through-hole parts relatively easy to solder. But if you prefer, you can also buy a pre-assembled unit from the museum, using the same link above. In either case, you will be contributing to a registered public-interest nonprofit dedicated to preserving the history of computers, as 100% of the proceeds go to the museum, none to me.