foft Posted December 17, 2014 Author Share Posted December 17, 2014 Haha, I knew it! What's the score? Thanks for the quick fix. Once the path itself starts flashing I soon crash! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanfanel Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 Thaks A LOT for the joystic-on-keyboard on the latest DE1 version, foft!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 (edited) I've been playing around with my new (over 1 year old but untouched until now!) SOCkit board recently. The Altera FPGA on this board is interesting in that it also has a physical ARM chip on, typically running Linux. This ARM chip has bridges to the FPGA fabric. Using these I've mapped the Atari core into the ARM memory space. So the ARM can be used for debugging as an accelerator or to play tunes via the pokeys etc. Its running ok though I've still got to get DDR3 RAM, sound, gpio and USB controllers working. I plan to get the standard mode working: Much like the ZPU on other platforms. i.e. firmware that freezes the 6502 then uses Antic to display a menu/select disks/cartridges. Also I'm thinking about another mode: AspeQT for drive emulation (over X), command line tools to type over ssh terminal, reboot, set turbo mode etc. All in all an interesting board, though I would not recommend it to FPGA beginners. Edited January 4, 2015 by foft 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 freaky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reds1f14 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Is this just emulating the Atari Core hardware at this point, or are there enhancements like 14 MHz clock, VBXE, and other enhancements? Have cartridge and SIO ports? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 (edited) Is this just emulating the Atari Core hardware at this point, or are there enhancements like 14 MHz clock, VBXE, and other enhancements? Have cartridge and SIO ports?There are enhancements. Most boards run the 6502 clock at 28MHz or 56MHz. However there is no cache yet so it's bound by ram latency. Effectively 28MHz on DE1 sram, 7MHz using sdram (other boards). By default the CPU is limited to 1.7MHz for compatibility. Dual pokey, covox, sd card based drive emulator, sd card based cartridge emulator, turbo freezer. Extended ram (with downgrade options 64k, 128k, 320k compy/rambo, 576k compy/rambo, 1MB). No VBXE. 2x/4x antic DMA speed implementation partially implemented. For high res modes. No software support planned though so I've not prioritised debugging it. Real SIO and cartridge on DE1 only - an interface needs building though. Edited January 5, 2015 by foft 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 You probably need to run ANTIC/GTIA DMA at 2x/4x speed to get 80 columns, or 320/640 multicolor graphics. Would be great for word processor and text applications. Games it probably require 4x with higher CPU clock speed or else the Antic DMA will tie up the BUS too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Jefferson Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Better would be to emulate VBXE, since that exists in physical hardware and provides 80 column natively. There's already software written for it too. No sense dreaming up some other mods that only exist in this emulator/hardware implementation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Better would be to emulate VBXE, since that exists in physical hardware and provides 80 column natively. There's already software written for it too. No sense dreaming up some other mods that only exist in this emulator/hardware implementation. No, the VBXE is closed and there is no interest in cooperation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Closed? It's implemented in the open-source Altirra. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) Closed? It's implemented in the open-source Altirra.So is antic! Though I guess that is more open after decapping! Edit: I mean hardware regs are described, a software emulation exists in altera but the hardware itself is closed. Edited January 6, 2015 by foft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I didn't realize you actually needed the source for the core. This is unfortunate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Sadly, the whole machine+VBXE would probably fit in some of the roomier dev board FPGAs. Reverse engineering the VBXE to make it happen simply isn't worth it for the tiny handful of software written for it. Most people buy a VBXE just for the nicer RGB display anyway. Some cool hardware 80-column support would be nice but other than that, I'm not too interested in expanded graphics capabilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenjennings Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 You probably need to run ANTIC/GTIA DMA at 2x/4x speed to get 80 columns, or 320/640 multicolor graphics. Would be great for word processor and text applications. Games it probably require 4x with higher CPU clock speed or else the Antic DMA will tie up the BUS too much. Would it be possible to make RAMdual-ported/dual-bussed/whatever the description is, so that ANTIC and the CPU can access RAM at the same time without the chip DMA tying up the CPU? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 9, 2015 Author Share Posted January 9, 2015 (edited) Would it be possible to make RAMdual-ported/dual-bussed/whatever the description is, so that ANTIC and the CPU can access RAM at the same time without the chip DMA tying up the CPU?Much of making the system compatible at 1x is making sure these clash:) I can move them out of alignment quite easily. For higher speeds there is plenty of bandwidth. For sdram, which is more latency bound, it can burst several bytes at once. Character data could be cached and the rest of antic access is mostly sequential. Edit: to answer the question directly too. Internal block ram, yes. External ram (sram/sdram) no. For most platforms I'm using external ram - bigger. Edited January 9, 2015 by foft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 foft, Firstly - an inspiring and amazing project! Is there a problem writing to SD cards on with the current build (2014-12-14)? I'm running on a brand new (xmas present!) DE1 board which also seems to require the SDRAM only switch set. I can read ATR files fine, but any disk write produces an error. Tried with two different SD cards, same result. I can write to the same ATR files fine on a real atari 65xe with homemade SIO2Arduino. Any ideas? Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 9, 2015 Author Share Posted January 9, 2015 Hi Robin, Not that I'm aware of. Though to be honest I've only tested saving a few basic programs. In the firmware menu does it show 'rw' on the images? I check the read only flag on the disk and in the atr. Which error are you getting and with what software? Interesting your sram doesn't work. Thought all that was in the past. Which chip do you have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Hi Robin, Not that I'm aware of. Though to be honest I've only tested saving a few basic programs. In the firmware menu does it show 'rw' on the images? I check the read only flag on the disk and in the atr. Which error are you getting and with what software? Interesting your sram doesn't work. Thought all that was in the past. Which chip do you have? The disk images show up as RW in the firmware. I've got the error in a couple of places. Trying e.g. SAVE "D1:TEST.BAS" from BASIC after booting into DOS 2.5 fails with Error - 139. I've tried that on a couple of images, one downloaded from an archive, the other created myself using a command line ATR utility. Regarding the SRAM - the datasheet on the CD is for the IS61WV25616EDBLL, which matches the chip on the board. I've tried Mike Stirlings DE1 ZX Spectrum - which failed at first until I modified the project with the pin setting patch described earlier in this thread. Hope this helps, Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 9, 2015 Author Share Posted January 9, 2015 I just doubled checked the latest DE1 build you are using and the simplest: boot dos25.atr 10 ? "hi" save "d:test.bas works... Something this simple is definitely failing for you? Or are you saving large files? I should check I've not dropped any of the sram settings. Will have a think... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 (edited) I just doubled checked the latest DE1 build you are using and the simplest: boot dos25.atr 10 ? "hi" save "d:test.bas works... Something this simple is definitely failing for you? Or are you saving large files? I should check I've not dropped any of the sram settings. Will have a think... Yes, just ran your example as is, and it fails with Error - 139. My DOS 2_5.ATR shows as DOS 2 5.ATR RW MD (underscores show as space in your firmware). Have attached to this post. DOS2_5.ATR Edited January 9, 2015 by electrotrains Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 I see the same with that disk. With my dos disk it works fine. Mine is single density, this is medium density. Perhaps I messed up medium density in my drive emulation... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 Just tried creating a blank disk (Single density) in SIO2OSX, so I could try to save to that - however I needed to format it first from DOS 2.5, on the DE1 which didn't work (Error 138). Also downloaded a single density copy of DOS 2.5 and booted from it, then tried saving a BASIC file to that, but still get error 139. So no luck for me saving or formatting even to single density. I've attached the single density ATR of Dos 2.5 Dos 2.5 alt.atr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 (edited) The VTOC shows that DOS 2.5 ALT.ATR as having 1010 sectors and should be 720 to be single density.. The menu allow 2 density to be made option 'I' and option 'P' for single density. Edited January 10, 2015 by rdea6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foft Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 I've looked into this. The DOS2.5 I have is using 0x50 (write without verify) The DOS2.5 version you are using is using 0x57 (write with verify). There is a bug in write with verify in my drive emulation. I forgot to seek back to the original location before reading... I'll put out another version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 Foft, Glad it was a real bug and I wasn't wasting your time - looking forward to the new version. If you need any help with this project I'd be happy to lend a hand (time & 2 young kids permitting!). It would be great to get it 100% working, but I know how difficult it can be to do that. My VHDL is practically non-existant - its a steeper learning curve than expected, but I've been programming C for years (I wrote a ZX Spectrum emulator from scratch years ago), so could help out with the ZPU stuff if you need any help there. Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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