ATARI ST FPGA

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Nice to see Herr Harbaum here. I agree that targeting Falcon, Jaguar or anything above STE is too much now - when we have no 100% accurate 68000, ST HW FPGA code.

Surely we need some compromises. However, doing for instance 100% cycle exact 68000 CPU emul. is only matter of effort . It is done by time with SW emulators, so I think that sooner or later we will see it in FPGA too . Actually, I know one guy who claims that he did it already. He is on making cheap Amiga FPGA, as open source project. We will see about it in following year ...

 

I would consider as reasonable demands about some Atari ST FPGA clone today, some 6-7 years after first such published: price not higher than 200 Euros, rather in 100 Euro range. Cycle accurate 68000 emul. Full ST HW emul. What must be 100% correct emulated is video. ACSI DMA is not crucial - likely is enough to support only SD medias. STE emulation is welcome, of course. IDE emulation would be good too, and it is really simple. Selectable: compatible (8MHz) mode or max speed mode. Video out should be VGA at selectable: 50, 60, 75 or 100Hz - then will work on any modern monitor too, and some multisync ones (50 and 100)., while internal video freq must be org. 50, 60 or 71 (ST mono) .

Then, it will run practically all ST SW, games, most of demos, Spectrum 512 like hi-color etc.

 

All above needs for sure a lot of work yet. Maybe some joined effort could move things forward.

[Gunstar]

I agree with the sentiments of people that are only interested in at least a Falcon and TT cable clone. But I would go further and say I see no need for such a machine unless it is as powerful as the latest Amiga and TOS clones, or at the very least, CT60/63 capable. If I'm going to get something like this, it has to be more than the ST and Falcon I already own, and Amiga capable isn't enough, in fact, even on the Amiga side it should be at least 030-060+ capable too. Plus, it would need to be fully compatible all the way back to original ST's and Amiga's, though the last part wouldn't be a requirement for me, since all the best ST/Amiga software has been hacked to work well on Falcon's, TT's and Super Amiga's (I would assume).

[harbaum]

As long as GFA-Basic runs on this I'm happy.

It does.

 

But I would go further and say I see no need for such a machine unless it is as powerful as the latest Amiga and TOS clones, or at the very least,

 

What's the point of building a clone that's compatible to existing clones? Why re-invent machines that are in production? You can e.g. simply buy a firebee today.

 

The MIST is addressing people that don't have a permanent setup of these retro machines in the basement. People like myself who may even have an Atari ST sitting somewhere in the basement in a drawer, but who'd need to find a screen that's able to display the original video modes first (incl. a matching cable of course). Who'd then have to clean the mouse just to find out that the mouse cable is broken. Who'd then learn that 90% of the old floppy disks isn't readable anymore and who'd finally after three hours of trying to get the old box to boot without bombs due to chips that have to be reseatet are being told by their wifes to clean up all the mess they did in the living room.

[swapd0]

Is there software supporting packed pixel formats? Which ones?

I wrote that because I've a 3d engine and also a 3d mapping routine and always wondered if it would run faster on a packed screen format, but of course it's a lot of job for a single user/application.

 

Anyway if MIST can run faster than a 8Mhz Atari ST I'll have the same speedup without rewriting anything.

Edited April 23, 2013 by swapd0

[Noelio]

Sounds groovy! I'll be following to see where it goes.

 

What I'd love to see *some day* is some FPGA retro fit boards for our ST/mega/STe & 8-Bit machines.

With a small enough footprint one board could fit all with break out cables going to available holes in the casing.

A little dremmeling or port drilling is fine by me! I know... I'm dreaming! But necessity is definitely creeping up.

[harbaum]

What I'd love to see *some day* is some FPGA retro fit boards for our ST/mega/STe & 8-Bit machines.

With a small enough footprint one board could fit all with break out cables going to available holes in the casing.

 

The market for that is super small. And most development required for this would go into the re-implementation of the original interfaces. This has been done once for the suska. I doubt this will happen again.

 

USB converters exist for many ancient keyboards/mice/Joysticks or at least can easily be built: http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjhid-de.html

 

So you might have a better chance putting just a MIST or similar into the case and try to adopt the peripherals.

[tjb]

Has the MIST started shipping? I ordered one last night. I can't wait to get my hands on one.

 

tjb

[GadgetUK]

If it ran at Falcon speeds I would definitely order one, but ive got totally upgraded ST, STe and Amigas already so this doesnt currently appeal to me. Looks very cool though!

[Jungsi]

Has the MIST started shipping? I ordered one last night. I can't wait to get my hands on one.

 

tjb

I've ordered also one a few weeks ago. Lotharek said that shipping would start in 6-7 weeks. Maybe shipping starts in the first or second week of July.

[oky2000]

Owning a Falcon is cool but there really is no decent games on it in all honesty, the less technically capable Amiga 1200/CD32 hosted some much better games honestly.

The TT even less interesting really as without all the actual TT or Falcon ports the serious use of such hardware is limited.

So apart from 16mhz STE support missing for me it's got all that is really needed as a first product, if they could implement fast 68000 core emulation like 16mhz, 24mhz or 32mhz though that would be great.

[jens]

Hi.

Owning a Falcon is cool but there really is no decent games on it in all honesty,[...]

Don't tell me that without having played Crown of Creation.

[mimo]

If it ran at Falcon speeds I would definitely order one, but ive got totally upgraded ST, STe and Amigas already so this doesnt currently appeal to me. Looks very cool though!

I agree, without TT/Falcon core it offers me nothing over the 4160STe sitting on my desk.

[atarian63]

I like the size of it, I have a ton of systems setup and due to size my st is not. This would allow me to add ST backinto my games machine setup

[+Gemintronic]

This is not a bump or whimper for a status update. I'd just like to reiterate a minmig style board that can play Starglider and run GFA-BASIC is truly awesome! This fits a definite segment of Atari users. Some will go Firebee. Some will go original hardware 'till it crumbles. I'll wait and get this board!

[tjb]

I like the size of it, I have a ton of systems setup and due to size my st is not. This would allow me to add ST backinto my games machine setup

 

That's exactly why I'm interested as well.

 

tjb

[JamesD]

Now all we need to do is have these individual FPGA developers standardize on one C-One like board. That way we can focus on making better cores rather than re-inventing the boards each time. Dunno why the C-One or Minimig didn't become that standard.

The C-One didn't have a big enough FPGA and the Minimig used a smaller FPGA and a 68000 cpu.

 

This uses a larger FPGA to hold a 68000 core along with the rest of the hardware.

Frankly, I've see a LOT of projects like this and I don't see how any of them are going to become THE standard.

I think the developers would have to port more machines to the hardware.

If you can just stick in an SD card to boot as Amiga, ST, C64, Atari 8 bit, VCS, Colecovision, Apple II, VIC 20, CoCo, Spectrum, etc... then you start pulling away from most of the other projects which only have one or two machines running. There are at least a dozen other FPGA machines out there as well but going from 90% to 100% complete on new hardware is a lot of work.

[+rdemming]

 

Frankly, I've see a LOT of projects like this and I don't see how any of them are going to become THE standard.

I think the developers would have to port more machines to the hardware.

If you can just stick in an SD card to boot as Amiga, ST, C64, Atari 8 bit, VCS, Colecovision, Apple II, VIC 20, CoCo, Spectrum, etc... then you start pulling away from most of the other projects which only have one or two machines running. There are at least a dozen other FPGA machines out there as well but going from 90% to 100% complete on new hardware is a lot of work.

 

What about the FGPA Arcade. This one aims to be a multiplatform FGPA board including Amiga and ST.

 

Robert

[+Firedawg]

What about the FGPA Arcade. This one aims to be a multiplatform FGPA board including Amiga and ST.

 

Robert

 

Yeah, very nice board the FGPA Arcade is, and Mikej is very close to shipping the finished product. And at 199 euros, the price is right too. The MIST is a great design, but at the 206 euros I think I will get the FGPA Arcade.

[JamesD]

What about the FGPA Arcade. This one aims to be a multiplatform FGPA board including Amiga and ST.

 

Robert

It looks like a decent board and I'm certainly considering buying one.

However, in spite of all the FPGA projects on their site I'm not sure how many are 100% complete even though the hardware appears to be ready.

I already own a DE1 development board and can run several mostly complete cores.

The FPGA Arcade Replay will have to run more of what I can already run before it really becomes attractive to me.

Unless MIST runs more than just a couple machines it isn't attractive either.

[+wood_jl]

I really like all this stuff, but it sure would be nice if someone could make one where it would be a drop-in replacement for an ST or Amiga motherboard. Having it all inside an original Atari (or Amiga) case would just be the cat's ass. Half of the experience is handling and using the original equipment, to me. Little cases and PC keyboards seem kind of alien, like an emulator does. Atari 1040ST and Amiga 500 woud be the popular models to target, if someone was crazy enough to make a replacement motherboard.

[mattlacey]

Looks interesting! Just bought a Falcon so can't afford any more toys just yet, but I'd definitely consider it just because it'll allow the use of modern peripherals.

[tcdev]

Now all we need to do is have these individual FPGA developers standardize on one C-One like board. That way we can focus on making better cores rather than re-inventing the boards each time. Dunno why the C-One or Minimig didn't become that standard.

The C-One is way too under-powered now. And whilst the Cyclone III extender board is reasonably capable, IIUC you have to jump through too many hoops to access the rest of the circuit. I've never really understood the attitude of the developers/vendors though; trying to get any real information about it is like extracting teeth... anyway IMHO it's also too expensive for what it is - i.e. very old hardware.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the proliferation of FPGA boards; the HDL cores themselves are very portable - more-so than software in some respects.

 

The TerASIC DE1 has become a sort of de-facto standard for these retro cores; unfortunately I believe they're no longer being manufactured though stock is still available. The FPGA on it (EP2C20) is no more than adequate though, and Minimig is a squeeze. TerASIC's bigger-brother offerings are nice (the DE2 is pretty much a DE1 on steroids) but disproportionately expensive. You might want to look out for the Replay by Mike of fpgaarcade.com. It looks promising with plenty of interesting interfaces but very slow to get out of the gates so far.

[amiman99]

To OP,

Is it possible for you to run SYSINFO on the Amiga core and get a screenshot? I'm interested in the max performance of the board.

[delvis]

Off the wall question. Can this board be adapted to fit inside a PC or Mac laptop case? Near me is a "Computer Works Goodwill" that collects all the scrapped computers from everywhere. You can go in and find lots of long lost older PC and Mac stuff. (Use to carry Atari 10 years ago but not now)

 

So my though was if the laptop case offered the space would it be very hard to adapt this MB into it.

 

* Connect to a LCD and keep the external VGA connector

* power the back lite of the LCD panel

* tie into the keyboard of the laptop

* support the laptop battery and the AC power supply

 

I think this would make a heck of a cool ST laptop mainboard

 

The scope might be too great but it might be worth looking to. If Dell Model XYZ laptop was the best match and a hack could be created to make it work in side the case...

[delvis]

My last post was answered already on another forum. It would be easier to try a different MB. Makes sense.