carmel_andrews' Blog - The Ultimate Hardware Emulator or the Ultimate Hardware platform

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The Ultimate Hardware Emulator or the Ultimate Hardware platform

 

I bring this up because of the interest in both software based emulation (i.e stella, Atari++, WinUAE etc) and hardware based emulation (i.e Dingoo/gp2x, Flashback series and also the tv game joytick players)

 

Additionally the reason for this blog stemmed from an Idea i discussed with fellow AA member NathanA some time ago on another chat room, initially concerning commodore computers that could run atari software etc and Atari computers that could run commodore software etc

 

The initial idea being centred/centered around a 1090 xl expander box scenario, one for the commodore computers and one for the atari computers, the idea being that the 1090 xl alike expander box would have the controller or personality board to interface the expander box with any systems cards and also the host system (be it a commodore or atari system) the system card that i referred to would contain the neccessary hardware to make the host machine act like either an atari computer (if the host machine was a commodore) or a commodore computer (if the host machine was an atari) the system cards would be ‘slot based’, like the AGP/PCI/PCIe type cards on the pc, the idea was that you could attach USB/Memory cards (so as to install software etc or to add a pc keyboard, hard drive or cd/dvd drive), a special io port which connects to a separate i/o box depending on the system card being used, the i/o box would simply contain the i/o ports pertaining to that system card, i.e if it were an atari computer system card, that i/o box would contain an sio port, a8 cartridge port and a pbi or eci port, the commodore i/o box would simply contain the i/o ports pertaining to the commodre computers

 

The system cards themselves would contain both the processor (6502c or 6510) the hardware specific to the atari or commodore computers like the chip sets and i/o support chips like freddie, VIA/CIA/PIA etc as well as user memory (in the form of STfm/Ste stylee plug in SIMMS) and also the firmware (i.e operating systems and also any built in programing langauages like BASIC or Assembler etc)

 

However, since the idea first surfaced more and more innovative console/computer on a chip devices have since come to the fore and following on from CV’s various posts about re-engineering particular atari custom i.c’s, brings me to propose a new idea based on the above but extended to other retro/classic hardware platforms (as well as modern hardware) beit computer or gaming hardware

 

The Idea being, that it’s still based on the 1090 xl expander box scenario alike device but made available to all classic/retro hardware platforms (beit gaming or computer hardware), the system would have 2 controller/personality cards which would have the hardware to interface between the systems cards and the host computer/gaming system, the controller/personality cards would also have on them FPGA type devices to replicate various Microprocessors (CPU’s) without the need to have various different CPU’s taking up board space (one board for classic cpu’s likez80/8080/6/8/68000/020-060/the various 65xx/65xxx family of processors and any other classic processors, the other board would have a FPGA device replicating the modern MPU’s i.e Anything P4/Athlon/Duron/Arm/PPC etc and earlier)

 

The systems cards themselves would be one per system, i.e a system card for atari 8bit, a system card for the c64, coleco vision, n64 etc etc, each system card would have the FPGA device on the card that essentially replicates the system in it’s entirety (i.e all hardware chips including i/o support chips as mentioned previously and also the firmware like operating systems, programming languages like basic/assembler etc etc) and also have a 2 memory slots your user memory (up to 1 gig, using old stylee SDRAM) the system card would also contain 2 ‘flashroms’ 1 to interface with the hardware chip portion of the FPGA device and one to interface with the firmware portion of the FPGA device, the idea being is that you could have the system card hardware chips, replicating any popular hardware upgrade (be it gfx or sound hardware) available for that system, examples being like the VBXE/VBXE 2 or L E M for the Atari 8bit or the Nova gfx card/Parsec gfx card for the ST/STE, additionally you can also upgrade either the o/s or programming language via flashrom 2 that interfaces with the firmware portion of the system card (the system card would come with a piece of software in the card for hardware or o/s and systems programming/developing) the 1090 xl expander alike device would come in various configurations depending on how many systems you would want in the 1090 expander alike device i.e anything from 5 systems, right up to 20 or 30 systems depending on your preference

 

Because the controller/personality card(s) will replicate any given classic CPU (albeit depending on the system card used or active) system card will ‘tell’ the controller card what default processor to use (be it a z80 for a spectrum or a 6510 for a c64 or whatever processor is pertinent to the system card being used), because the system card will feature a built in programming system for hardware/o/s or systems programming for that system card, you could effectively program that system card to using any classic CPU, just imaging a c64 running on a z80 or 68000 or a spectrum running on an 65816 or z8000

 

Like the initial idea each sytem card would be slot based like the AGP/PCI type affair that would have external connectors/ports, , the idea was that you could attach USB/Memory cards (so as to install software etc or to add a pc keyboard, hard drive or cd/dvd drive), a special io port which connects to a separate i/o box depending on the system card being used, the i/o box would simply contain the i/o ports pertaining to that system card, i.e if it were an atari computer system card, that i/o box would contain an sio port, a8 cartridge port and a pbi or eci port, the commodore i/o box would simply contain the i/o ports pertaining to the commodore computers, as well as a joystick/pad connector for gaming/computing systems not using standard atari joystick ports (like the BBC, sony and nintendo etc systems)

 

In relation to handheld gaming devices (i.e gameboy /gbc/gba/lynx/game gear etc) a similar concept to the 1090expander box device would be available but would only feature systems cards replicating gaming systems as it wouldn’t be practical or useful replicating a computer system (like an a8 or amiga etc on something like a lynx/gba etc), each system card would have the external connectors for connecting to usb memory sticks/memory cards or an external i/o box (the i/o box would havbe i/o ports pertinent to that system card, namely a cartridge port and any network ports (like comlynx etc), also possible would be a tv out connector so you could display output on a crt or modern tv with a standard co ax connector as well as a standard joystick/pad connector (be it atari or nintendo/sony/sega type)

 

Cost wise, I think you could make the 1090 xl expander alike device plus controller boards and 1 system card (min. Confi g would be a 5 system expander device) for about 80-100 pounds, each additional system card would be between 30-50 pounds (depending on the complexity of that system) and the external i/o box for about 20 pounds (with cable to connect with the system card)

 

The beneift here is that whatever system the 1090 expander alike device is available for, be it a spectrum, c64, atari, amiga, coleco, ps1, DC, n64, even a pc, mac, xbox, ps3 etc and depending on the system cards in the 1090 expander device, it immediately opens up more software for that platform that the 1090 expander box is available on, and because it has external connectors allowing you to load in software pertinent to that system card (as well as the external i/o box thing) it will encourage increased 3rd party software and hardware development across various classic platforms (albeit gaming or computer related)

 

Also because the system will be capable of running modern processors and systems (like an xbox/ps3/360/pc or mac etc) hardware companies will benefit because it means they gain additional sale from that system card sold and also software companies benefit from additional sales of that software, which other wise they probably not have sold to

 

Obviously the challenge will be getting the hardware and software companies onboard more so then actually developing the system

 

Hardware companies like sony/nintendo and MS as well as the Old school hardware companies like warners/infogrammes(Atari), Yerronimo ventures (commodore), gateway (Amiga), Amstrad (Amstrad/sinclair) and so on and so forth, will benefit because more people via the 1090 alike expander device will be exposed to these systems (classic or current) and also be probably buying the various official or 3rd party hardware accessories they will be using with the externbal i/obox (not only increasing the number of people using say a nes, or n64 or ps1/dc/xbox etc) but also keeping these systems alive, plus additional sales of those systems, hardware accessories etc (where otherwise no additional sale would have happened) also software companies will benefit through more software being sold to those people using the 1090 alike expander device, additionally it will also encourage companies to re releasing entire back catalogues/catalogs of classic/retro gaming and computer software and also releasing new software for classic/retro hardware plaforms (be it gaming or computer hardware)

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=blog&blogid=352&showentry=6830