Author: Communications Team

KiCad Schematics sources published, waiting funds for prototypes

Posted on by Communications Team

On the 24th of April 2026 we published on our GitLab repository https://gitlab.com/power-progress-community/oshw-powerpc-desktop-tyche/-/tree/main/KiCad?ref_type=heads the OrCad schematics source, converted to Altium and then imported into KiCad, thanks to our association members.

As KiCad cannot yet import OrCad schematics, this is a 2-hop OrCad→Altium→KiCad flow.

The KiCad pages are out of order. There are two KiCad directories in this repository: one exactly as imported from Altium (KiCad_outOfOrder), and another where our volunteers attempted to change the page numbers to match the filenames, but they did not reorder in the sheet page listing — they are still in the same random-looking order. We are investigating how to fix this at some point, as the file with “01” in the filename should come first, since it contains the table of contents, in order for everything to line up correctly. Other than the ordering issue, it looks reasonable.

If you would like to help check the quality of the conversion to KiCad and potentially work to improve it, please contact us.

Schematics Donation Campaign updated its goal and completed — PCB Donation Campaign updated its goal with around €3,500 still needed to reach it

On 6th April 2026, thanks to the funds collected for the Notebook CE certification and due to the temporary halt of Notebook motherboard production, the association used €2,130 from that previous campaign to pay and balance the Desktop Schematics design costs that are €6,250.

A further €8,000 from association funds was used to pay a portion of the PCB costs in advance. The total cost of the PCB design is around €12,500; since €8,000 came from association funds, we have reduced the goal of the PCB donation campaign to €4,500.

  1. PCB Design of Desktop Powerboard Tyche

    Starting from the source of the Electronic Schematics design design the PCB means prepare all physical PCB layers lanes and components disposition and connection to go in production with prototypes. Designer have take from NXP Devkit design ( 2023 version) everything is related to boot process and many parts from our Notebook design, except what is not needed for Dekstop version, like the Battery part.

    €1,255.56 donated of €4,500.00 goal

As you can see to reach the goal of this campaign we need to receive donations of around €3,100 to settle the balance with ACube for the PCB design before the end of May.

From March 2026 the PCB design has been completed and is in our hands, we are waiting funds to start prototype production.

To produce the first five prototypes, we need a total of around €9,000. Once we have the cash flow to balance the PCB design and to make this commitment to the manufacturer, we will sign the contract to proceed with production. To avoid further delays, we need significantly more donations.

Image by May Angelike from Pixabay

Join us to Help on Debian PPC64 Big Endian packages

Debian ppc64

Do you have already installed Debian 13 PPC64 on your G5 or Debian 13 PPC on your G4?

More info how to do it on our forum.

In case you have not PowerPC hardware we can give you access to the Power9 VM we have free at Open Source Lab at Oregon Stage University. thanks to the support of , so you can test and fix the package inside this VM.

If you want to investigate which are the packages that are compiled successfully on PPC64

link build debian ppc64

powerpc ( 32 bit) https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=powerpc&suite=sid

To verify if a bug is already reported on the Debian bug tracking system

How to report a bug https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

To fix and build a debian package

‘sbuild’, which is the software used to build Debian packages in a clean environment.

To get it working, all you need to do is create a file called  ‘release-name-architecture.tar’ in the ~/.cache/sbuild/ folder, which contains a minimal Debian system.

To create these tar files containing Debian images, is suggested to use another  little tool called ‘mmdebstrap’. It’s very similar to its cousin, “debootstrap”, which you may have heard of, but it’s a bit faster.

Finally, if you’re comfortable working with Git, we recommend the tool  “dgit”, which essentially allows you to download and build any Debian package in a consistent manner, without having to worry about how the package maintainer themselves works with it.

So, in terms of the commands to use on your machine:

mmdebstrap --variant=buildd unstable ~/.cache/sbuild/unstable-ppc64.tar
    dgit clone mbedtls
    cd mbedtls
    dgit sbuild

Contacts us

We are ready for prototype production!

Posted on by Communications Team

The PCB design is finally complete, and we are officially ready for prototype production.

However, before taking the big step, we need to balance the PCB design costs:

  • 3,050 euros at the end of April;
  • 3,050 euros at the end of May;

To produce the first five prototypes, we need a total of around 9,000 euros. Until we have the cash flow to make this commitment with the manufacturer, we will not sign the contract to go into production.

  1. Powerboard Tyche Desktop Electrical Schematics Design
    €4,120.00 donated of €4,120.00 goal

Schematics are already published in pdf format on our gitlab repository

Why aren’t we publishing the PCB design yet?

We will only be able to publish the open-source design after paying the design costs and only when prototype production is underway. This is for two fundamental reasons:

  1. Before paying, we do not own the rights to the source files.
  2. The source files will only be considered final after physically testing the prototypes.

Furthermore, our manufacturer ACube Systems can only afford to produce the Desktop board for the first time if no one else beats them to the market. After all the hard work done to make this dream a reality, it is our duty to protect them.

A special campaign: win the historic laptop PCB!

Since the current donation flow is insufficient to cover the design costs and start production, we are exploring new ways to raise funds.

One of the ideas we are considering is a special giveaway: we will raffle off a PCB from our previous prototype (the laptop version) among all donors who contribute from now until we reach the 9,000 euro goal.

Please note: this is a “dummy” PCB (non-functional), produced solely to verify the physical dimensions of the board. It was never an operational prototype. We hope this piece of our journey’s history can motivate the community to help us cross the finish line!

T-shirts, gadgets, and the “DY Maker” spirit

We are preparing T-shirts and other gadgets dedicated to the PowerPC Notebook and Desktop projects, also linked to our association DY Maker mindset.

We collaborate with volunteers to create the opportunity to experience hands-on learning, to inspire creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving by trying to conceive, design, and produce what we need or desire. We encourage this culture from primary schools to University, with no age limit.

Soon we will ask you to vote on different options for T-shirts and gadgets. After that, we will open pre-orders for t-shirts, stickers, and much more!

Our recent events

We have been very active locally:

  • March 13 – Bolzano, Italy: We shared our project with electronics students at Free University of Bozen · Bolzano – Faculty of Engineering – Electronics and Information Engineering, just as we did in Milan in May 2025. In agreement with the professors, we discussed possible university theses in collaboration with our association.
  • March 14 – Trento, Italy: We were hosted by Hack in Povo in collaboration with LinuxTrent, where we presented the history of our projects.

Desktop board specifications

Our Desktop board is a Micro ATX measuring 244 mm in height and 172 mm in width. When it comes to audio, we didn’t hold back: it features optical digital audio inputs and outputs, 6 analog RCA connectors for 7.1 surround sound, and separate ground connections for the analog and digital sections to ensure maximum sound clarity.

Software and PCB source roadmap

  • Stage 1: Soon we will convert the Schematics source files from Cadence to Altium, and then to KiCad. In the meantime, there is a free viewer for Orcad sources at this official Cadence link. We also point out an interesting open project that has started importing Orcad sources directly into KiCad: OpenOrCadParser.
  • Stage 2: Thanks to your donations, once we have collected enough funds to balance the design and prototypes, we will merge and import the PCB source files from PADS directly into KiCad. This is now possible thanks to the brand new importers introduced in KiCad 10: learn more on the KiCad blog.

  1. PCB Design of Desktop Powerboard Tyche

    Starting from the source of the Electronic Schematics design design the PCB means prepare all physical PCB layers lanes and components disposition and connection to go in production with prototypes. Designer have take from NXP Devkit design ( 2023 version) everything is related to boot process and many parts from our Notebook design, except what is not needed for Dekstop version, like the Battery part.

    €1,255.56 donated of €4,500.00 goal

Let’s stay in touch!

We have been on the Fediverse for a few years now. You can find and follow us at: hostux.social/@powerprogress. Please follow us and share our posts to spread the word. Thank you for your continued support!

Arctic Fox v47.0: the modern web on PowerPC is still possible!

Posted on by Communications Team

It has been six years since we published our interview with Riccardo Mottola, one of the pillars of software development for our favorite architecture. In it, we talked about the vital importance of having an up-to-date browser to make a PowerPC computer usable in the modern world. At that time, we were anticipating the release of version 27.11.0.

Today we are happy to announce that that mission not only continues, but has reached a new, important milestone: Arctic Fox version 47.0 has been released.

While our hardware team fights with oscilloscopes and development boards, tireless developers continue to refine the software that will run on our future notebook.

Six years of evolution: from v27 to v47

The numerical leap from v27.11.0 to v47.0 represents far more than just a version bump; it signifies a massive architectural overhaul. In the silence between our blog posts, Riccardo has been relentlessly bridging the gap between legacy hardware and the increasingly complex modern web.

During these years, the focus has been on two critical fronts: compatibility and standards. The web didn’t stop evolving in 2020, and sites that worked then would be broken today without this work. Riccardo has backported hundreds of security patches and functionality updates from the Mozilla and Pale Moon codebases. This includes implementing modern TLS standards to ensure secure connections, rewriting the media backends to fix audio/video playback on Big Endian systems, and optimizing the code to leverage AltiVec instructions, ensuring that the browser feels responsive even on older G4 and G5 processors, as well as our target NXP T2080.

What’s new in v47.0?

This release is not a simple maintenance update. The recently released v47.0 brings fundamental structural changes to navigate the web of 2026 with dignity on “alternative” hardware.

Here are the main novelties extracted from the changelog:

  • JavaScript Engine Enhanced: Extensive updates have been made to the JavaScript engine, introducing critical new capabilities such as async functions and support for Wasm (WebAssembly). This is a giant step for compatibility with modern web apps.
  • Graphics and Multimedia: Significant updates in WebGL and ANGLE, as well as an update to the libcubeb library for better audio management and video playback.
  • Security and Core: Updates to NSS (Network Security Services) and fdlibm libraries, as well as improvements in the netwerk module, DOM, and DevTools.
  • Mac Compatibility: For friends following us from the vintage Apple world, the minimum target compatibility for compilation on macOS has been raised from 10.9 to 10.10, although native compilation remains possible on 10.6 and WebCam available there.
ArcticFox running on real PowerPC G4 Hardware and GNU/Linux

A solo journey (that needs you!)

Maintaining a fork of Firefox/Pale Moon on a Big Endian architecture like PowerPC is a huge technical challenge. It requires solving bugs that developers on x86 or ARM will never see, handling endianness, and optimizing code to exploit specific instructions like AltiVec.

We want to give special credit to Riccardo Mottola, who has been carrying this torch almost single-handedly. His dedication to keeping this browser alive is practically a solo effort, a labor of love that benefits us all. It is our sincere hope, and his too, that other developers will step forward to lend a hand. If you have experience with C++, Mozilla’s codebases, or PowerPC optimization, your contribution could make a massive difference.

Arctic Fox v47.0 is proof that planned obsolescence can be fought with code and passion. You can download the binaries for Linux PowerPC (and other architectures) directly from the official release page.

Thanks again to Riccardo for his tireless work!

Beyond the code

Riccardo’s passion for keeping classic technologies alive extends beyond computing. He is also an avid photographer with a deep respect for tradition. Coming from a family of photographers, learning the essentials from his grandfather and even using his great-grandfather’s cameras, he specializes in traditional film and manual photography. Much like his approach to software, he values the authentic process, often developing his own black-and-white film and avoiding digital manipulation. You can admire his work, which ranges from landscapes to aerial photography, in his photography portfolio.

Schematics reviewed and published!

Posted on by Communications Team

This project has been in the public eye for several years now, working together with supporters who have backed us through the long process of creating notebook prototypes. Over the last eight months, we have focused on developing a desktop version largely redesigned to be immediately functional

As promised, the sources for our desktop board have been reviewed by NXP. They suggested a few changes, which we have implemented. The review process cost us an additional €850, but it was worth it: we have improved our schematics and PCB design just in time for the prototypes.

Great news: NXP confirmed we can publish the schematics with an Open Hardware License! We have already uploaded the PDF version to GitLab.

GitLab Repository Powerboard Tyche Desktop Schematics

However, before publishing the raw source files, we need to convert them from the proprietary OrCAD format to KiCad to ensure everyone can use them. As such, we need collaborators to help us bridge the gap.

If you would like to reserve a production desktop board this summer, we need donations to cover €6,100 for the remaining costs of the PCB design, as well as the expenses associated with prototypes and testing in the coming months. ACube Systems will handle the production because we are a nonprofit organization not allowed to sell physical products.

We are doing the necessary work to reach production, despite the obstacles. The difficult part, the uncertainty, is behind us. Now we are missing a very simple ingredient: funds. We need to raise a few thousand euros in a window of 2-3 months. Simple, but not easy.

Join us on this journey!

Donate, tell your friends, and share our project. In order to enjoy the PowerPC motherboard later, we must all work together now by joining the donation campaign in large numbers.

  1. PCB Design of Desktop Powerboard Tyche

    Starting from the source of the Electronic Schematics design design the PCB means prepare all physical PCB layers lanes and components disposition and connection to go in production with prototypes. Designer have take from NXP Devkit design ( 2023 version) everything is related to boot process and many parts from our Notebook design, except what is not needed for Dekstop version, like the Battery part.

    €1,255.56 donated of €4,500.00 goal
Image by Free Photos from Pixabay

Join us in this great opportunity for hands-on learning, creativity, and problem-solving as we design and produce what we desire.

If you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to fill out our survey or contact us.

Troubleshooting the T2080RDB DevKit: stuck in sleep

Posted on by Communications Team

As many of you recall from our post on December 24th, 2025, we hit a significant roadblock with our hardware testing. During the last shipment of one of the DevKits at our disposal, the power supply (which we had already replaced) and the T2080 motherboard sustained damage.

Since then, we have spent quite a few hours on the workbench trying to revive the NXP T2080RDB DevKit, but the situation remains critical.

A photo of the NXP T2080RDB reference DevKit board.

The symptoms

The behavior is consistent but frustrating. We hooked up the serial console, hoping for some life, but unfortunately, no information came out of the serial port. It is complete silence.

As soon as we power up the board, a specific LED close to the CPU turns on. After checking the technical documentation, this indicator seems to signal that the CPU is being kept in a sleep state.

The investigation

So far, none of our attempts have led to a breakthrough or even a solid theory, so we are currently clueless.

To dig deeper, we had to get creative with our quite limited diagnostic tools. We decided to investigate the electronic components and connections on the DevKit board using a piece of classic equipment we had on hand: a very old Tektronix T935A oscilloscope.

Photograph showing a flat signal in the oscilloscope connected to components of the T2080RDB devkit.

For those interested in vintage test gear, the Tektronix T935 is a 35 MHz dual-channel analog scope with a delayed timebase from the T900 series. The specific model we are using, the T935A, is an upgraded version of the standard T935 (and the single-timebase T932).

The “A-series” adds some very useful features that came in handy during our probing:

  • Differential input (A-B)
  • X/Y mode in full sensitivity for both channels
  • DC trigger coupling and composite trigger
  • User-selectable CHOP/ALT mode (Non-A series select this automatically based on sweep rate)

You can read more about this workhorse on the Tektronix Wiki.

What We Tested

We painstakingly probed the board using the T935A. Although it cannot detect the high-frequency bus operation of the CPU or DDR lines, many components can be seen. High-impedance readings allow us to check the pins, and we can verify the power lines.

Beyond signal probing, we also attempted to force the board to boot from different media. We altered the DIP switches to try booting from the SD card, the NAND flash, and the SPI flash. The oscilloscope should show us chip selects of them to show read activity.

We tested the electric signals associated with:

  • The main power lines (fine)
  • The SD card interface (no activity)
  • The NOR and NAND flash interfaces (no activity)
  • The oscillators that provide clock sources for CPU and RAM (fine: 66 MHz and 133 MHz)
  • The reset lines of the T2080 CPU (one good, one shows no activity)
  • The CPU clock input line (dead?)

Photograph taken during the electrical track testing session of some components of the T2080RDB devkit.

Current status and next steps

Unfortunately, even with a detailed signal analysis and configuration changes, the CPU remains stuck in reset. The CPLD attempts to pull the CPU out of reset; however, the clock input is dead, and the HRESET line stays low.

The boot phase fails very early. Perhaps the CPLD did not complete the sequence, or maybe it is corrupted. There may also be a hardware issue. A visual inspection shows nothing apparent; we removed the CPU heatsink. The CPU remains cool, which proves that it is not running.

If anyone has experience with T2080RDB boards getting stuck in a reset state or has suggestions on what to probe next, please reach out!