Shift838 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Today I remembered coming across a web page back in 2010 or so about group working on producing a new 'Geneve 2' in the U.K. I did a quick search and came across it again, but no updates since then. Anyone know of anything about this project? http://www.ti99ug.co.uk/g2.htm Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Funny, I came across the same page yesterday and wondered the same thing. From the looks of it, it was as if it was almost ready for general release... It's not right to make people drool that much and put them at risk of dehydration... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 That was my understanding as well reading their update that PCBs were getting ready to start being produced. I have sent them an email to see if I can get any more information. Chris 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 That page is wildly optimistic. Boards have been designed, and fabricated. Gary has them. One board has been partially populated. The project is stalled on the testing of the VHDL 9995. It is confirmed that on power up the 9995 goes through its reset procedure, and goes out to the address/data bus to get its context vectors for a reset etc. That's as far as Gary got. Mark 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Is it permanently stalled or is it just a temporary hiccup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 (edited) Maybe it is temporary stalled with a permanent hiccup Edited March 3, 2015 by schmitzi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 It's temporary - though who knows when he'll have time to work on it. I personally think the design is way too complicated for one guy to do on his own in his spare time, with a wife and family. I think it needs (at least) the network interface removing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I wish I could help, but this is way beyond my skill and knowledge level unfortunately. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I think it would be better to release something for a DE1 or other existing board at first. Then people could help debug it.This approach leaves way too much hardware to be tested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I think it would be better to release something for a DE1 or other existing board at first. Then people could help debug it. This approach leaves way too much hardware to be tested. I'm inclined to agree. The G2 is designed to fit in the PEB like the original Geneve. But I wonder.... What's the point now? The whole machine could probably be done in software on the Raspberry PI 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Raspberry is new stuff, not vintage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 I did find out some more information from Gary on the status of the Geneve 2. Below is his quote: "The Geneve II did get a bit side lined. There were many reasons including bathroom fitting - which is still not complete although it is starting to go a bit quicker due to the earache from the missus :-) Also, the forth cartridge for Mark Wills did take a bit of time. This is almost complete from my side. Just need to ensure that the TI can talk through the FPGA to the flash and then it is over to Mark for some serious 9900 coding. The Geneve II is not forgotten about. It will be restarted after the Forth is complete. I have partially assembled PCBs and both FPGAs will program. It is just a case of working through the design carefully to ensure I do not break anything. All the code for the 9995 and address decoding / gramulator are done and ready to try. The other FPGA has the 9901 which is complete but it also has the 9938 which is not included yet. There will be some other tidying up such as adding the mouse interface etc. With the present amount of time that I can put aside for this I guess about a year to have it up and running. I totted up the other night how much time I put into this already and it is over 2500 hours." So it appears that it may be possible to see this new addition in the next year.. Chris 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 That would be so awesome!. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
globeron Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Just was reading about Geneve II in Tijdingen (Dutch TI-GG-NL Usergroup). That would be cool on a Geneve II on a Raspberry. I am in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Why does all the world try to squeeze everything into the poor Raspberry? Sorry, this is something I really struggle to understand. For years we've had ever-increasing PC power, increasingly comfortable systems and software, but now everyone wants to do a leap back by 10 years? Just because ... it's small? Takes only 10 W? Can be hidden below the desk (if there were not those cables)? Or just because we can do it? I have two Raspberries, one of them doing some network services in my home network, the other one will replace the microcontroller for our solar/oil heating system some time, but I have my big fat Corei7 / Radeon HD7870 / 16 GiB RAM PC below my desk for the hard work. My attempts to run MESS on the Raspberry is mainly because many people asked for it, but for me it does not really make sense. Not intended to flame, I'm just curious. The Raspberry is a nice system for doing some special, limited tasks, and for learning, but as with all those tablets, cannot even remotely replace my desktop PC - in my view. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 I think it's mainly the small form factor, the ridiculously low price and the ease of set up, not to mention its versatility either as a lower end computer or as a microcontroller. There is simply nothing equivalent to it in the Intel based single board computer world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 yep, internet and new stuff is virtuality enough for me. I would prefer to see the G2 as real chassis, real life and for bare-metall, I would give real coins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 (edited) I did find out some more information from Gary on the status of the Geneve 2. Below is his quote: "The Geneve II did get a bit side lined. There were many reasons including bathroom fitting - which is still not complete although it is starting to go a bit quicker due to the earache from the missus :-) Also, the forth cartridge for Mark Wills did take a bit of time. This is almost complete from my side. Just need to ensure that the TI can talk through the FPGA to the flash and then it is over to Mark for some serious 9900 coding. The Geneve II is not forgotten about. It will be restarted after the Forth is complete. I have partially assembled PCBs and both FPGAs will program. It is just a case of working through the design carefully to ensure I do not break anything. All the code for the 9995 and address decoding / gramulator are done and ready to try. The other FPGA has the 9901 which is complete but it also has the 9938 which is not included yet. There will be some other tidying up such as adding the mouse interface etc. With the present amount of time that I can put aside for this I guess about a year to have it up and running. I totted up the other night how much time I put into this already and it is over 2500 hours." So it appears that it may be possible to see this new addition in the next year.. Chris Given how long it has taken to work out the 6502 and Z80 cores so they are cycle accurate and have the same execution behavior I would expect some teething pains with the 99** cpu cores. It's one thing to implement a CPU but debugging to make sure it doesn't break on any code is usually a little more involved even if you ignore timing differences. If I were to implement a 99** series CPU and speed weren't an issue I'd include a small amount of cache so register loads would be faster. I think it could allow a major speed boost. Edited March 7, 2015 by JamesD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyBritish Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 What is the forth cartridge being referenced? Turboforth? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 (edited) No--it is an absolutely neat Forth computer on a cartridge--with four Forth processor cores on it. Willsy put a picture of it up at one point. Here's the link: Edited March 7, 2015 by Ksarul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Let's try this again, since the system seems to be eating the link in my prior post: Willsy's Forth Cartridge 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 (edited) Let's try this again, since the system seems to be eating the link in my prior post: Willsy's Forth Cartridge and it also eats some of my messages, and the PopUps on new messages..... /EDIT/ and it struggled some of my http-links Edited March 7, 2015 by schmitzi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyBritish Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 I think it's mainly the small form factor, the ridiculously low price and the ease of set up, not to mention its versatility either as a lower end computer or as a microcontroller. There is simply nothing equivalent to it in the Intel based single board computer world. Well Intel does have the Intel Galileo - http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/galileo-maker-quark-board.html Intel Edison - http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html while more expensive than the raspberry Pi2 the Edison is about a quarter of the size of the Pi board In addition the Edison has sparked a whole range of boards from https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272 one board adds an OLED screen and buttons / joystick another one adds a battery pack However now i have seen the willsy forth on a cart it makes you wonder...could you create a board that looks like a ti99 cart but could be powered with USB and controlled from a PC...ie you plug it into a TI99 and it does its TI99 thing but you can use it as a dedicated forth machine and you could talk to it from a PC heck you could even 3d print a cartridge and add Forth Machine to it as the logo :-) one thing is for certain...these days if you can imagine it, it is likely you can build it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 Now this is something I will come up with money for. I hardly use the TI in emulation any more after getting the Geneve going 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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