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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

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  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
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They have not yet released any details on developer options for the Pocket. Until then, it just feels like a marketing ploy to hint that all MiSTer could run on it when that is not true. Taber is basically trying to hype it up using promises that can be denied. Sure, you can say that is his job as marketing guy, but it's a bit in bad taste. 

 

We can't know what is actually doable until more details surface. Taber seemingly got the specs wrong, which kind of shows building a dev community is not his priority. That does not mean the hardware is without merit, and Kevtris very probably did his homework to make it attractive to other developers. 

 

The most likely, from what I could glean, is that some open cores could be ported and loaded by users. That does make the JB obsolete to some extent  Exactly what can be done remains to be seen, but my personal impression is that it could potentially run MiST cores (the older board) and have room for spare. Probably most 8 bit consoles would fit.

 

But also bear in mind the DE10 is not dumped by Terasic - it is sold at cost, which isn't the same (and more sustainable). And for a developer the DE10 is a much more attractive option than a product made by a smaller corporation that is known to run out of stock. To be honest, even Analogue claim themselves that the Pocket is limited in quantities; meanwhile the DE10 is sold to students in universities worldwide.

 

I'd encourage all not to fall for hype and not dwell into negativity. No, open source authors do not owe anybody a port or free cores. So please don't pester them. But yes it is true that porting something over is less work and hobby/novice developers could do it.

 

Also, as long as the code is open all these cores can be ported both ways. I'd be concerned if Analogue starts doing things to prevent that (ie. if its one way due to some terms of use or propietary item for protectionism) but details on the developer features will make that clearer. I would hope they just go "here's how you do it, do whatever you want" and have a clause that its not their problem what people do with it.

Edited by Newsdee
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15 hours ago, Newsdee said:

They have not yet released any details on developer options for the Pocket. Until then, it just feels like a marketing ploy to hint that all MiSTer could run on it when that is not true. Taber is basically trying to hype it up using promises that can be denied. Sure, you can say that is his job as marketing guy, but it's a bit in bad taste. 

I really don't think they're trying to hint that all of MiSTer is going to run on the Pocket. If people want to make that unjustified inference that's on them. They're promising the feature, but not making any promises for what will actually come out of it (since that's up to the community), which is the smart move. Assuming they use the same Cyclone V as the Super NT and Mega SG, that's 49k logic elements, compared to DE10's 110k so obviously not everything on the MiSTeR will be able to be ported (the Neo Geo is almost certainly out of reach.)

 

I'm not sure if the MiSTer SNES and Genesis cores are as LE-efficient as the Super NT and Mega SG, but they have to be pretty close. And considering the proprietary scaling and output logic is offloaded to the Cyclone 10, the Cyclone V would have more room to spare on the Pocket. By all accounts, HDL is easy to port from one platform to another. It seems reasonable that we'll see ports of MiSTer cores at least thru SNES/Genesis, assuming that they grant full access to the Cyclone V. They're wisely not making any promises though.

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On 10/18/2019 at 10:15 AM, jamon1567 said:

Where did you find that quote btw? I read a handful of articles the day of and never saw it myself.

NintendoLife.

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/10/who_needs_a_game_boy_classic_edition_when_youve_got_the_analogue_pocket

 

As for some claims that their statement about a 2nd announcement actually references something like a core store or the silly notion that it's going to be the already announced dock, I suspect that's all nonsense. Taber is already on the record for saying that "Pocket is a tribute to all of portable gaming" and that "our goal is to bring support to all handheld game systems to Pocket", so they've basically already announced that potentially more handheld cores could happen. And they're hardly going to tease an accessory announcement that got announced right alongside the Analogue Pocket itself. 

 

Plus, why would he select one platform, such as the TurboGrafx-16 which saw a handheld iteration or the pretty obscure Wonderswan, to hold back from the initial unveil just to save for an announcement that we're led to believe will be happening in the near future? And like I've already posted when they said "this is only announcement number 1, we're just getting started", they're obviously not teasing a product set to be announced on ~October 16th 2020 like another poster speculated was the case.

 

Ultimately this next announcement may of course have something to do with the Pocket and that obviously makes plenty og sense. But a rationalized Nt Mini rerelease built to Super Nt/Mega Sg standards also makes sense, I feel. There clearly is some demand for it and it's a product that's essentially already been developed that wouldn't of demanded Kevtris to work full time on it for the past 12 months (although I'm sure Kevtris would want to do some touch up and incorporate some of the advances made with the last two Analogue systems like interpolation). 

 

It would appear to me that they have the resources to do that. Of course some of their fans might not have the financial resources to grab two Analogue systems in close proximity to each other, but hopefully if this Analogue 8 thing pans out in 2020, it will be something that like the Super Nt and Mega Sg, won't have severely limited availability and can be put on the back burner for a few months without fear of losing out.  

Edited by Atariboy
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8 hours ago, RynoW said:

IIf people want to make that unjustified inference that's on them. They're promising the feature, but not making any promises for what will actually come out of it (since that's up to the community), which is the smart move. 

That is a bit the M.O. though. He never said the Super NT would support more cores but a lot of people got hyped about that possibility and they certainly didn't deny anything.

 

That said, technically it is an interesting move and a change in design from the previous model where the systems were completely closed. The Genesis ans SNES cores from MiST would fit, in principle.

 

I don't get the feeling this will support computers. It could be done with an on-screen keyboard, but it seems like a bunch of extra work when the main goal is just playing games. We shall see...

Edited by Newsdee
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2 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Ultimately this next announcement may of course have something to do with the Pocket and that obviously makes plenty of sense. But a rationalized Nt Mini rerelease built to Super Nt/Mega Sg standards also makes sense, I feel. There clearly is some demand for it and it's a product that's essentially already been developed that wouldn't of demanded Kevtris to work full time on it for the past 12 months (although I'm sure Kevtris would want to do some touch up and incorporate some of the advances made with the last two Analogue systems like interpolation). 

 

It would appear to me that they have the resources to do that. Of course some of their fans might not have the financial resources to grab two Analogue systems in close proximity to each other, but hopefully if this Analogue 8 thing pans out in 2020, it will be something that like the Super Nt and Mega Sg, won't have severely limited availability and can be put on the back burner for a few months without fear of losing out. 

 

I have a feeling that the Analogue 8 is going to be an "8-bit throwback" console, which will have standard cartridge slots for Atari 2600/7800, ColecoVision and Intellivision (and perhaps Vectrex, just for kicks?). I expect it will also feature a USB connector into which you'll be able to plug a keyboard which, doubled with a SD card reader and other expansion ports, will make several computer cores possible, from Atari computers to Commodore computers, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, Coleco ADAM, and more. This might seem like a far-fetched theory (and honestly, at this point, it sorta is) but I have reasons to believe this is a serious possibility:

 

1) The Analogue Pocket is evidently a major project for Analogue, so I find it odd that they would trademark the "Analogue 8" name in parallel and not wait until next year. This makes sense only if the Analogue 8 is something completely different from the Pocket, caters to a different crowd, and doesn't require a ton of development effort for Kevtris.

 

2) Kevtris already has FPGA cores running for pretty much all the pre-NES consoles, so it's not like it would be hard for Kevtris to create an FPGA console that runs them in a less "jailbreaky" way. Also, Kev's Intellivision core was never released on any Analogue FPGA console to this date, if I'm not mistaken.

 

3) The cartridge adaptors for the Mega Sg were never released, and both Analogue and Kevtris have remained quiet about them. Presumably, the Analogue Pocket is more likely the main cause, because it eats up a lot of Analogue's R&D resources and budget, and keeps Kev quite busy. But we know that the Analogue 8 is coming (whatever it turns out to be) and a stand-alone FPGA product that covers pre-NES gaming platforms would also be a good reason not to release those Mega Sg cart adaptors. After all, if the Analogue 8 was to have only one general-purpose cartridge port, then it would be cart-adaptor-driven far more than the Mega Sg was ever meant to be. 

 

4) As a corollary to point #3 above, additional cart adaptors could be made for NES/Famicom, Sega Master System, SG-1000, etc.. This would make a re-release of the Nt Mini unnecessary.

 

5) The home computer cores I mentioned would be icing on the cake, especially if Kevtris is not necessarily the one who would make the FPGA cores for them. If the Analogue 8 is open to core developers just like the Analogue Pocket is meant to be, then many home computer cores could be developed in parallel by different FPGA coders, and the Analogue 8 would become the one-stop-shop for everything that's pre-NES. Have more than one USB port on the machine, and you could even add a mouse or even a cheap laser printer to it, making it a multi-computer machine on which you could do things other than gaming (but let's be honest, it would be for gaming first and foremost).

 

Edited by Pixelboy
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2 hours ago, Pixelboy said:

 

I have a feeling that the Analogue 8 is going to be an "8-bit throwback" console, which will have standard cartridge slots for Atari 2600/7800, ColecoVision and Intellivision (and perhaps Vectrex, just for kicks?). I expect it will also feature a USB connector into which you'll be able to plug a keyboard which, doubled with a SD card reader and other expansion ports, will make several computer cores possible, from Atari computers to Commodore computers, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, Coleco ADAM, and more. This might seem like a far-fetched theory (and honestly, at this point, it sorta is) but I have reasons to believe this is a serious possibility:

 

1) The Analogue Pocket is evidently a major project for Analogue, so I find it odd that they would trademark the "Analogue 8" name in parallel and not wait until next year. This makes sense only if the Analogue 8 is something completely different from the Pocket, caters to a different crowd, and doesn't require a ton of development effort for Kevtris.

 

2) Kevtris already has FPGA cores running for pretty much all the pre-NES consoles, so it's not like it would be hard for Kevtris to create an FPGA console that runs them in a less "jailbreaky" way. Also, Kev's Intellivision core was never released on any Analogue FPGA console to this date, if I'm not mistaken.

 

3) The cartridge adaptors for the Mega Sg were never released, and both Analogue and Kevtris have remained quiet about them. Presumably, the Analogue Pocket is more likely the main cause, because it eats up a lot of Analogue's R&D resources and budget, and keeps Kev quite busy. But we know that the Analogue 8 is coming (whatever it turns out to be) and a stand-alone FPGA product that covers pre-NES gaming platforms would also be a good reason not to release those Mega Sg cart adaptors. After all, if the Analogue 8 was to have only one general-purpose cartridge port, then it would be cart-adaptor-driven far more than the Mega Sg was ever meant to be. 

 

4) As a corollary to point #3 above, additional cart adaptors could be made for NES/Famicom, Sega Master System, SG-1000, etc.. This would make a re-release of the Nt Mini unnecessary.

 

5) The home computer cores I mentioned would be icing on the cake, especially if Kevtris is not necessarily the one who would make the FPGA cores for them. If the Analogue 8 is open to core developers just like the Analogue Pocket is meant to be, then many home computer cores could be developed in parallel by different FPGA coders, and the Analogue 8 would become the one-stop-shop for everything that's pre-NES. Have more than one USB port on the machine, and you could even add a mouse or even a cheap laser printer to it, making it a multi-computer machine on which you could do things other than gaming (but let's be honest, it would be for gaming first and foremost).

 

The Analogue 8 is one reason I'm holding off in getting a hi def nes kit. I want a NES core with all the features like interpolation, hq4x etc.

Edited by Intense.Mark
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I'm sure a bunch of the early home computers would work considering most of them have similar hardware to consoles that are already implemented. Apple Macintosh and Sharp X68000 and Commodore Amiga? That's the Genesis CPU. Commodore 64 and Apple II? That's the NES CPU. ZX Spectrum? That's the Master System CPU. Apple IIGS? That's the SNES CPU.

 

Input isn't a problem, it has USB input.

 

(not all of those are exact matches, some of them are off-brand or derivative CPUs, I'm talking about scale and not exact matches).

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9 minutes ago, Guspaz said:

I'm sure a bunch of the early home computers would work

It is not about whether it's possible or not (it is) but rather if the Analogue propietary stack will pass through keyboard (and mouse) events to the FPGA. 

 

Not that it's hard to do, but Kevtris would have to add that specifically and it is not really needed for any console.  Maybe he already did it, but unless we see details we can't just assume.

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Do we know anything yet about the GBA BIOS? I recall that Visual Boy Advance really needed a dump of the original around 2004 since the reverse-engineered one kinda sucked. Still, it was the only one legal to distribute. They've have come a long way and I heard it's nearly perfect these days but who developed Analogue's GBA BIOS? Did they license it? Pay someone else to reverse engineer it? Did Kevtris himself match or surpass the community efforts? I'm genuinely curious to know.

 

Also, the original GBC BIOS had a load of game-specific color optimizations programmed in for classic GB titles (not just default pallets). Will the Analogue Pocket do the same?

 

 

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45 minutes ago, CZroe said:

Do we know anything yet about the GBA BIOS? I recall that Visual Boy Advance really needed a dump of the original around 2004 since the reverse-engineered one kinda sucked. Still, it was the only one legal to distribute. They've have come a long way and I heard it's nearly perfect these days but who developed Analogue's GBA BIOS? Did they license it? Pay someone else to reverse engineer it? Did Kevtris himself match or surpass the community efforts? I'm genuinely curious to know.

 

Also, the original GBC BIOS had a load of game-specific color optimizations programmed in for classic GB titles (not just default pallets). Will the Analogue Pocket do the same?

 

 

A few years back there were GBA clones built into a cartridge adapter by retrobit. Whatever hapened tothese clone chips? How didtheyrunwithut bios?

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6 hours ago, Pixelboy said:

3) The cartridge adaptors for the Mega Sg were never released, and both Analogue and Kevtris have remained quiet about them. Presumably, the Analogue Pocket is more likely the main cause, because it eats up a lot of Analogue's R&D resources and budget, and keeps Kev quite busy. But we know that the Analogue 8 is coming (whatever it turns out to be) and a stand-alone FPGA product that covers pre-NES gaming platforms would also be a good reason not to release those Mega Sg cart adaptors. After all, if the Analogue 8 was to have only one general-purpose cartridge port, then it would be cart-adaptor-driven far more than the Mega Sg was ever meant to be. 
 

I consider myself pretty rational and not in any way entitled when it comes to products from both commercial company’s and the community and never expect to get anything other than what explicitly advertised for my cash and base my purchasing decision purely around that.

 

But I’ll be very upset if the Mega SG cart adaptors never get released. I know we have access to the cores via jailbreak but roms aren’t my thing and I was sold the SG s year ago on the basis that it would play all 16bit and below Sega games on their native media. Analogue’s website still promises that! To hold them back to sell me something else, I couldn’t be the only one upset by that?

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24 minutes ago, Enragedwhale said:

I consider myself pretty rational and not in any way entitled when it comes to products from both commercial company’s and the community and never expect to get anything other than what explicitly advertised for my cash and base my purchasing decision purely around that.

 

But I’ll be very upset if the Mega SG cart adaptors never get released. I know we have access to the cores via jailbreak but roms aren’t my thing and I was sold the SG s year ago on the basis that it would play all 16bit and below Sega games on their native media. Analogue’s website still promises that! To hold them back to sell me something else, I couldn’t be the only one upset by that?

My sentiments exactly. I want the Game Gear adapter. Others may want the SG-1000 adapter. And the pocket will also make a great Lynx/GG replacement as well. Adapters for all, but if they charge $40 to ship a $10 adapter domestically, there wil be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

Has anyone tried the retrofreak adapter with the Mega SG for game gear? Will it work?

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7 hours ago, Newsdee said:

It is not about whether it's possible or not (it is) but rather if the Analogue propietary stack will pass through keyboard (and mouse) events to the FPGA. 

 

Not that it's hard to do, but Kevtris would have to add that specifically and it is not really needed for any console.  Maybe he already did it, but unless we see details we can't just assume.

Analogue clearly stated that the Dock of the Analogue Pocket will have USB ports. Kevtris can work out keyboard and mouse compatibility from that.

 

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A few years back there were GBA clones built into a cartridge adapter by retrobit. Whatever hapened tothese clone chips? How didtheyrunwithut bios?
I assume they used the same BIOS as clone GBAs or emulators. I certainly don't think RetroBit developed their own! Who knows... their supplier could have just illegally copied Nintendo's BIOS. Analogue Pocket, OTOH, claims to be completely developed in-house.
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My sentiments exactly. I want the Game Gear adapter. Others may want the SG-1000 adapter. And the pocket will also make a great Lynx/GG replacement as well. Adapters for all, but if they charge $40 to ship a $10 adapter domestically, there wil be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 
Has anyone tried the retrofreak adapter with the Mega SG for game gear? Will it work?




Jump to 16:54.

Of course, it may be a different story now since that video was made with the launch FW which may not have had GG support. Some level of GG support is definitely there for the jailbreak FW so I'd be interested in seeing this repeated.
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1 hour ago, CZroe said:
8 hours ago, Kosmic Stardust said:
A few years back there were GBA clones built into a cartridge adapter by retrobit. Whatever hapened tothese clone chips? How didtheyrunwithut bios?

I assume they used the same BIOS as clone GBAs or emulators. I certainly don't think RetroBit developed their own! Who knows... their supplier could have just illegally copied Nintendo's BIOS. Analogue Pocket, OTOH, claims to be completely developed in-house.

Wasn't the GBA bios only used to bootstrap the game cart and load download titles through the link cable? If you axe the download link and flash screen, a custom orstripped bios to boot the game cart would be easy. I don't believe the biosactually does anything once a game is loaded. And I bet Kevtris will figure a way to let us load an official Bios for link download games. Or use a real gba for the download console.

 

Also weren't there three different link cable plug types? GB classic, pocket/color, and GBA. Will it support linking?

 

I also like the docking idea.

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2 hours ago, Pixelboy said:

Kevtris can work out keyboard and mouse compatibility from that.

That's exactly my point. Computer cores are only possible if Kevris provides those inputs to the "developer cores" and documents it. Totally doable, but I'm waiting for some official details  on developer stuff for the Pocket before assuming it is there (because its not needed by the Pocket per se).

Edited by Newsdee
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Analogue clearly stated that the Dock of the Analogue Pocket will have USB ports. Kevtris can work out keyboard and mouse compatibility from that.
 


Just because it has USB and BT doesn’t mean the input stack has support for the whole HID stack. Or that the inputs are made available to the cores. A core would need to translate the input to something the internal logic expects, so how the inputs are presented can make things easier or harder. i.e. a core developer would need to be able to emulate the Pokey CO12294 behavior for the Atari 800.

I remain a little skeptical about KB/M support until we know more details on how much of HID is implemented for use by cores.


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Wasn't the GBA bios only used to bootstrap the game cart and load download titles through the link cable? If you axe the download link and flash screen, a custom orstripped bios to boot the game cart would be easy. I don't believe the biosactually does anything once a game is loaded. And I bet Kevtris will figure a way to let us load an official Bios for link download games. Or use a real gba for the download console.
 
Also weren't there three different link cable plug types? GB classic, pocket/color, and GBA. Will it support linking?
 
I also like the docking idea.
I believe it had some routines or assets (Fonts? Sound effects?) built-in because Nintendo's BIOS greatly improved VBA compatibility over the freely distributable version.

The GameCube BIOS certainly did, which is why you get corrupted fonts when you play a Japanese game with a Freeloader or Action Replay but not when you switch to the Japanese BIOS. Both were made in 2001.
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8 hours ago, CZroe said:

I believe it had some routines or assets (Fonts? Sound effects?) built-in because Nintendo's BIOS greatly improved VBA compatibility over the freely distributable version.

The GameCube BIOS certainly did, which is why you get corrupted fonts when you play a Japanese game with a Freeloader or Action Replay but not when you switch to the Japanese BIOS. Both were made in 2001.

On the topic of BIOS. It's one reason Analogue won't do a Neo Geo FPGA anytime soon.

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On the topic of BIOS. It's one reason Analogue won't do a Neo Geo FPGA anytime soon.
There has been an open BIOS project for a long time. Big reason it's unfinished is because there's little incentive. I suspect they'd simply pay someone to do the work (provide incentive ;)).
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9 hours ago, Kaide said:

Just because it has USB and BT doesn’t mean the input stack has support for the whole HID stack. Or that the inputs are made available to the cores. A core would need to translate the input to something the internal logic expects, so how the inputs are presented can make things easier or harder. i.e. a core developer would need to be able to emulate the Pokey CO12294 behavior for the Atari 800.

I remain a little skeptical about KB/M support until we know more details on how much of HID is implemented for use by cores.

So you're saying that FPGA cores need to have the equivalent of drivers (like on today's desktops and laptops) in order to interact with different USB devices. Since there's a plethora of USB devices out there, some of which could be interesting to try with Analogue products, it would actually make sense to have an auxiliary FPGA chip just for USB "driver" functionalities. Then the console's main FPGA core could interact with the auxiliary USB FPGA core via a standardized API, and the development of main cores and USB cores could be made separately. It would be a little more bothersome for the end user to set up, and creating custom "USB cores" would be a laborious (and probably tedious) process for FPGA coders. Both these problems could be mitigated by having Analogue recommend specific USB devices for their USB-enabled consoles. But yeah, I agree that the wonderful world of USB is not a simple one for the equally wonderful world of FPGA.  :) 

 

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