timofonic Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 I would rather have an F18B which would be just like the F18A but with more RAM . What about HDMI output too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 What about HDMI output too? This is what I use with my f18a. http://m.ebay.com/itm/132117262653 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 This is what I use with my f18a. http://m.ebay.com/itm/132117262653 Yeah, I don't see any need to add HDMI output to the F18A when you can get a converter as cheaply as this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 This is what I use with my f18a. http://m.ebay.com/itm/132117262653 Do you notice any difference whatsoever when using that in terms of clarity/colors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 I've got one of those too, I don't notice any issues with color, sharpness or latency. It's surprisingly functional Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 This is what I use with my f18a. http://m.ebay.com/itm/132117262653 I saw this negative comment in the review section. I don't know if it is true or not, maybe someone here knows the answer? (edit some of the extraneous sentences) "There was one possible solution offered by the TV manufacturer. That is that this device is NOT, NOT, NOT compatible with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. So before you buy this device, check the device you want to hook it up to to make sure that it does not require High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. If it does, then this will not work with it and you might as well forget it. FYI "High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection" is a preprogrammed hard-wired application built into HDMI devices that requires a code to be shared between the host device and the receiving device. In other words, if the two devices don't "handshake", you lose. In this case, the manufacturer claims that by connecting the computer to the HDMI port, the current output device (computer) revoked the security key for the receiver (TV set) so that the HDMI is likely PERMANENTLY disabled. Great. My advice is this: before you connect this device to your HDMI receiver whatever device it may be, check with the manufacturer and make sure it does not require encrypted security keys." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteE Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 That review doesn't make much sense, since there is no way a security key can exchanged over the VGA connector. Maybe he plugged the HDMI end into his computer and got confused why it didn't work, since it only works in the VGA to HDMI direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 The comment does not make sense, regardless of how many times I re-read it. No VGA device requires HDCP. Maybe the commenter had another issue, like hooking up a VGA device via this adaptor to a digital-only HDMI display. I'm not sure but I would expect that this connector only works for displays that allow for analog display. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 Do you notice any difference whatsoever when using that in terms of clarity/colors? Nope. No difference on the same display when connected to HDMI or VGA - Yes my display supports both but I want my 3 primary systems (TI, Amiga, Main PC) on HDMI so i can connect my Windows 8 machine to the VGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 I saw this negative comment in the review section. I don't know if it is true or not, maybe someone here knows the answer? (edit some of the extraneous sentences) "There was o<<<<<SNIP>>>>vice it may be, check with the manufacturer and make sure it does not require encrypted security keys." I dunno anything about those comments, it works with my TI. However, I did have issues a few years back when I connected my PC to a TV. I had to connect a VGA cable to the PC's onboard VGA - the cable was VGA to component and I hjad to connect 15ohm terminators to the component end in order for the digital content I was playing to work on the secondary video card I installed. It wouldn't work straight through from the built in VGA or without the terminated cable on the built in. My research at the time said it was due to a digital signal for content protection. To prevent folks from recording web streaming as if that was some sort of pirating method. either way, my workaround worked fine for about a year when i decided to buy a roku box instead due to ease of use. I should note that the VGA to HDMI adaptor that I purchased requires a microUSB 5v power source. which I found odd, but it works. It is not the same one in that ebay link. I got mine from Amazon for a couple of bux more. Went with Amazon in case I had to return it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted June 24, 2017 Author Share Posted June 24, 2017 Would this v9938.vhd file be useful for a maybe future "F19A"? Don't know, but it would not help me, I prefer to write my own HDL. However, in the 99/4A you cannot replace the 9918A with a 9938 without motherboard modifications. And most people do not want to, or simply cannot, do those mods. Personally I do not like the 9938 either, it was a big hack and is plagued with tons of "modes" (I really hate modes). Please don't turn this thread into a 9938 discussion, or 9938 vs the F18A, etc. There is another thread for that and there has been a ton of (sometimes heated) discussion about that already. I would rather have an F18B which would be just like the F18A but with more RAM . Working on it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted June 24, 2017 Share Posted June 24, 2017 (edited) However, in the 99/4A you cannot replace the 9918A with a 9938 without motherboard modifications. And most people do not want to, or simply cannot, do those mods. Personally I do not like the 9938 either, it was a big hack and is plagued with tons of "modes" (I really hate modes). Please don't turn this thread into a 9938 discussion, or 9938 vs the F18A, etc. The target user group would be people with an 80col card or a Geneve, not with a plain 99/4A. Also, one could think about creating new 80col cards from it to make use of the 9938-based software. However, this group may be too small to make it worth the efforts. Edited June 24, 2017 by mizapf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 27, 2017 Share Posted June 27, 2017 Working on it. Great. How are you going to make the additional RAM available to programs? I think I would prefer page switching into the normal 16K VDP memory space (e.g. with 2K pages) instead of having additional address bits like on the V9938. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted June 28, 2017 Author Share Posted June 28, 2017 How much additional RAM depends. I'm working on fixing a problem with the F18A related to the European CV boards, and in doing so I might end up reworking most of the design. If that happens, then I'll be a little more aggressive with the design and free up some block RAM that I am currently using for line buffers. I think I can get about 22K of VRAM out of the existing FPGA. *How* that extra VRAM play into the 16K is yet to be determined. I figured if you could locate VDP tables and such in that RAM it would help. If you want paging, then I could look into that as well. For a totally new VDP FPGA board, that would have a lot more RAM (like 512K), but that board is just lurking in my head and not even near reality. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 How much additional RAM depends. I'm working on fixing a problem with the F18A related to the European CV boards, and in doing so I might end up reworking most of the design. If that happens, then I'll be a little more aggressive with the design and free up some block RAM that I am currently using for line buffers. I think I can get about 22K of VRAM out of the existing FPGA. *How* that extra VRAM play into the 16K is yet to be determined. I figured if you could locate VDP tables and such in that RAM it would help. If you want paging, then I could look into that as well. For a totally new VDP FPGA board, that would have a lot more RAM (like 512K), but that board is just lurking in my head and not even near reality. It would be cool if you could get more RAM out of the current board. In that case the paging idea doesn't make much sense (if it makes sense at all). Perhaps the extra RAM could become available in the >4800->4FFF, >9000->9FFF, and >C000->FFFF regions of the GPU address space? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Even 2K of additional RAM would make it possible to make a few more existing 80 column programs compatible with the F18A. Reason: when some programs were converted from 40 to 80 columns, it wasn't possible to squeeze out the additional vram for the extended screen table, so the easy fix was to move the patterns to the next vram page and set the table pointers accordingly. Adding blocks of memory, or allowing the Vregisters access to memory above 0x4000 when the F18A is unlocked, would give us some options. Granted, this isn't as exciting as extra VRAM for new F18A application, but it is one possibility if you do give us more memory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MueThor Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 (edited) Dear matthew180, You wrote that one of the specifications for your F18A as it is realized up to this date(!?) is 16K VDP RAM using the FPGA’s block RAM. Does it mean that the original VDP RAM on the TI console still has to be accessed by the TMS9900 processor on the F18a circuit board (did I understand it correctly that there is an TMS9900 on the F18A circuit board?)? Regards Edited July 30, 2017 by MueThor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acme Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 (edited) Don't know, but it would not help me, I prefer to write my own HDL. However, in the 99/4A you cannot replace the 9918A with a 9938 without motherboard modifications. And most people do not want to, or simply cannot, do those mods. Personally I do not like the 9938 either, it was a big hack and is plagued with tons of "modes" (I really hate modes). Please don't turn this thread into a 9938 discussion, or 9938 vs the F18A, etc. There is another thread for that and there has been a ton of (sometimes heated) discussion about that already. Working on it. Hello Metthew, well, as you already know, I also read all of the 34 pages! Twice!! *kidding* - "I'm impressed!" is a really weak expression for it - Wow! Regarding your statement on the "F18B" (like Rasmus humorously suggested ), it's a firmware update, and would be something like V1.9 or V2.0, right? So people on your waiting list wouldn't get an 'old' version of the F18A-board, only a version with firmware V1.8, which will be updateable to your new "F18B" version someday? And thank you for the hint at the http://js99er.net regarding a fully working emulation for the F18A. I didn't know it, and this info never showed up in this thread IIRC. @Rasmus: Very very impressive! And thank you for the hint at the IDE (https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/) - Do you use the free version of it and do the xdt99 tools support F18A, or do I have to use "DATA" for the GPU-part? Btw: What did you guys all do from Fri Apr 5, 2013 12:54 AM and Sat Apr 25, 2015 10:05 PM? A two year gap - really? Is there another thread the discussion went to? Regards Andreas PS: what is RPG? Edited July 30, 2017 by acme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 @Rasmus: Very very impressive! And thank you for the hint at the IDE (https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/) - Do you use the free version of it and does the xdt99 tools support F18A, or do I have to use "DATA" for the GPU-part? Thanks. I'm using the licensed version, but the free version should work just as fine. The new GPU instructions are supported by xdt99, and XORG is very handy for assembling code in CPU RAM for uploading to VDP RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted July 30, 2017 Author Share Posted July 30, 2017 Dear matthew180, You wrote that one of the specifications for your F18A as it is realized up to this date(!?) is 16K VDP RAM using the FPGA’s block RAM. Does it mean that the original VDP RAM on the TI console still has to be accessed by the TMS9900 processor on the F18a circuit board (did I understand it correctly that there is an TMS9900 on the F18A circuit board?)? Regards With the F18A installed the original 16K of VRAM on the host computer is no longer used. In fact the DRAM chips can be completely removed from the motherboard (I have several systems running like that). The F18A uses the Block-RAM of the FPGA to implement the VRAM. The 9900-core in the F18A (referred to as the GPU) only accesses the 16K + 2K GPU-only RAM inside the FPGA. The host CPU (a real 9900 in the case of the 99/4A) simply sees the original 16K of VRAM. Regarding your statement on the "F18B" (like Rasmus humorously suggested ), it's a firmware update, and would be something like V1.9 or V2.0, right? So people on your waiting list wouldn't get an 'old' version of the F18A-board, only a version with firmware V1.8, which will be updateable to your new "F18B" version someday? The F18A "board" (PCB) itself has not changed since it was released, and the PCB will indicate V1.3 on the silk-screen layer. That was before I realized that the PCB revision should be separate from the firmware version. I always ship F18A boards with the latest firmware, and after that 99/4A and CV users can do in-system updates (thanks to Rasmus and Tursi) when new firmware comes out. Btw: What did you guys all do from Fri Apr 5, 2013 12:54 AM and Sat Apr 25, 2015 10:05 PM? A two year gap - really? Is there another thread the discussion went to? From April 2013 to April 2014, nothing. Really. That was a period after the initial release and interest in the F18A really dropped off. In April of 2014 Rasmus sent me a message saying he was trying to work with some of the F18A scrolling features and wondered how some of them were supposed to work. Since I created many of the features in a vacuum without any good idea of what kinds of features would be desirable of useful, I quickly realized that the way I had implemented some things were pretty useless. At that point Rasmus made some suggestions and we started discussing options for changes, possibilities, and actual desirable features. We also pulled Tursi into the discussion and the feature set for what would become V1.6 was created. Because of that discussion the features such as the Tile Layer 2, position-based attributes in Text mode, the GPU DMA, 16-color bitmap layer, etc. exist. You can see the change log in the first post of this thread for the complete list. Anyway, due to life and a big job change in 2014, it took me until April of 2015 to implement all the V1.6 changes and get it ready for release. That "missing discussion" is in the form of a PM thread and is about 19 pages. PS: what is RPG? Role Playing Game, perhaps? Where it is used? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acme Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 (edited) From April 2013 to April 2014, nothing. Really. That was a period after the initial release and interest in the F18A really dropped off. ... That "missing discussion" is in the form of a PM thread and is about 19 pages. That's the explanation. I saw some features, that weren't discussed here. This project is so awesome. I hope it gains popularity again. So my thanks go out to Tursi and Rasmus also. I feel kind of intimidated among all these living legends in here. Role Playing Game, perhaps? Where it is used? It was used here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/168968-f18a/page-30?do=findComment&comment=2639821 Edited July 30, 2017 by acme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 Rule-based programming? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfiniteTape Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 PS: what is RPG? In that context, probably the RPG programming language from IBM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG RPG is also the name of the first level of the Tron arcade game, followed by COBOL and BASIC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 In that context, probably the RPG programming language from IBM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG RPG is also the name of the first level of the Tron arcade game, followed by COBOL and BASIC. Back in 1977 I wrote applications in RPG for some Church's that needed computers for finance and donations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 I feel kind of intimidated among all these living legends in here. Stop that, and show us how we can do better instead. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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