F18A VDP

[Megatron1999]

Hi.

 

Does anyone know if there's a Single Chip version of the F18A or something similar in development as a Drop in replacement to the TMS9918. The idea of a single chip with all logic RAM etc all on one chip is an interesting idea and must have some commercial possibilities/success if developed. The idea of a 'NEW' improved single chip TMS9918 wouldn't just appeal to old Retro computer Geeks but the masses of people using microcontroller needing/wanting a VDP to generate Text & Graphics.

[HackMac]

Realizing your idea is not possible, because this chip which does the TMS9918 emulation is dump. It needs it's extra memory (an extra chip) to load the configuration. It could be possible to use an Xilinx Spartan-3AN instead of the Spartan-3E for example, which has integrated memory, but nevertheless you need extra chips for adjusting the 5 Volt TTL levels to low voltage (3.3 or lower) TTL/CMOS, or backwards, to communicate with the vintage TI-Chips. Additionally the FPGA has different voltages (3.3, 2.5 and 1.2 Volts) and that's why you need extra voltage regulators and circuits for them. And the only Spartan-3AN with onboard flash memory you can solder by hand is the XC3S50AN. But it seems that this device has not enough capacity to load the configuration for the 9918 emulation. So in any case an extra flash chip is needed.

Edited October 12, 2015 by HackMac