The Humane PC via MAKE.

The Humane Personal Computer combines the ease of Arduino development with the excitement of a classic stand-alone television-and-keyboard PC.

The novel design of the Humane PC offloads the complex NTSC/PAL video signal generation to a second dedicated AVR microcontroller. This makes writing video applications on the main microcontroller a breeze – as easy as writing text and VT52 control codes to the serial port, thanks to firmware from the TellyMate project.

A third AVR microcontroller is dedicated to implementation of a USB device, thanks to the AVR V-USB Project. The default firmware pemits programming the device over a serial port, using the Arduino bootloader, without the need for any hardware programmer. However the USB microcontroller can be used to implement any USB device profile, or used as a co-processor for general use.

The Humane PC comes with number of integrated peripherals to play with, including a Micro-SD Card reader, a PWM audio out device, four buttons, an IR receiver and transmitter, and a PS/2 keyboard connector.

Features

• 3 Atmega328p Microcontrollers – one for video, one for USB, and one for general computing.
• NTSC/PAL composite video output for display on any TV
• B&W 38×25 character text or simple graphics display
• VT52 + H19 video terminal emulation
• Accepts PS/2 Keyboard
• Micro-SD Card Reader
• PWM Audio output
• Completely Open Source design
• Infrared LED and reciever
• Micro-USB powered
• Fully programmable USB controller (atmega328p) allows use as a variety of USB slave devices
• Main MCU is serial programmable via USB
• Expansion headers compatible with most Arduino expansion shields
• 4 input buttons
• Optional aluminum case with powder coat finish
• Programable using C/C++ libraries, or via Arudino IDE
• Uses Tellymate Project code for vt52 video output
• Uses AVR V-USB firmware to implement a USB device