alienkidmj12 Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here's a little update on the JagSD and also the upcoming NeoGeo Pocket SD as well... I've been working on the NGPC flash as a stepping stone to the JagSD, as all the hardware (in some form) from the NGPC cart and programmer will be used in JagSD. Apologies that anything I hold constantly wiggles about, genetics can be a twat. But amazingly I can manage to solder fine pitch SMT devices with that hand tremor, though... awesome stuff, id love to beta test if you aint already got someone lined up im going to have to buy a neo geo portable now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 17, 2017 Author Share Posted January 17, 2017 (edited) GadgetUK has kindly offered his help, so I'll start with him initially as he's been of great help on the Lynx cart as well. But once things are working I'll be after another 2-3 people or something just to give it a good hammering. Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 GadgetUK has kindly offered his help, so I'll start with him initially as he's been of great help on the Lynx SD as well. But once things are working I'll be after another 2-3 people or something just to give it a good hammering. I'm always happy to help beta test hardware. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+af0l Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Pick me, pick me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rave Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Really looking forward to this one! Great vids on YouTube and I'll definitely be buying when their available. Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo_rg Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 I'm guessing you'll need an active jag dev team that could help you ** cough** cj 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaztee Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 And I'm just down the road from you, so I can help too. I'd recommend OMF to help too he's good at finding stuff others miss. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDIRunner Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here's a little update on the JagSD and also the upcoming NeoGeo Pocket SD as well... I've been working on the NGPC flash as a stepping stone to the JagSD, as all the hardware (in some form) from the NGPC cart and programmer will be used in JagSD. Very cool to hear about the NGPC flash drive. I currently own a Flash Masta. It works fine, but is limited to only store two games at a time (or one large game) since it doesn't have a slot for an SD card. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 17, 2017 Author Share Posted January 17, 2017 I'm guessing you'll need an active jag dev team that could help you ** cough** cj Yes, he's already on my radar... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here's a little update on the JagSD and also the upcoming NeoGeo Pocket SD as well... I've been working on the NGPC flash as a stepping stone to the JagSD, as all the hardware (in some form) from the NGPC cart and programmer will be used in JagSD. Apologies that anything I hold constantly wiggles about, genetics can be a twat. But amazingly I can manage to solder fine pitch SMT devices with that hand tremor, though... Ha, I put in Exxos' PSU and put together the Fast TOS switcher he sells into my 1040STe on Sunday. Dropped the soldering iron twice, once in my lap and once on the floor... Never solder naked... granted I wasn't, it's just that really would have sucked. I do have a burn mark on my pants though.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moo Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here's a little update on the JagSD and also the upcoming NeoGeo Pocket SD as well... I've been working on the NGPC flash as a stepping stone to the JagSD, as all the hardware (in some form) from the NGPC cart and programmer will be used in JagSD. Apologies that anything I hold constantly wiggles about, genetics can be a twat. But amazingly I can manage to solder fine pitch SMT devices with that hand tremor, though... This is a good update. I see both are coming along now. Both will be great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 Like! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjameslv Posted January 18, 2017 Share Posted January 18, 2017 Been following this awhile, really nice to see this is moving forward! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitari Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Nice one SainT! I'll be purchasing your neo geo cart too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jori Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 I need a Jaguar and a NGPC Cart. please add me to your list, thank you and best regards from germany !! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 Thanks for the support everyone, always keeps the motivation up seeing people are excited about the prospect of these things! I'm going to do my best to setup some kind of pre-order / shop type thing on retrohq.co.uk to make things a bit easier than doing it through a thread. I did have a look into it sometime last year, but I need some more work put into it yet... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Yep, I'm totally there for a Jag cart. Itching to get my hands on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Who are these people? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Who are these people? If other people can see them, they are real. Otherwise, it's just in your head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 As a developer, how will I be able to read data from SD card to JAG's main RAM at runtime? How much memory will be addressable this way? I understand that CDRom - based games will be able to read those ~700 MB, but will there be a way for a programmer to page/swap in data from, say, 2GB SD card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I wonder if it's feasible for it to emulate both the Alpine and the skunkboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 I wonder if it's feasible for it to emulate both the Alpine and the skunkboard. In what way "emulate"? I intend to have debugging capabilities (with a header which can be connected to the Jag PCB via a ribbon cable, like the Alpine), but I'm not sure what capabilities of the skunkboard would be wanted? Please let me know what you mean in more detail so I can consider what I can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) On 1/22/2017 at 3:27 AM, VladR said: As a developer, how will I be able to read data from SD card to JAG's main RAM at runtime? How much memory will be addressable this way? I understand that CDRom - based games will be able to read those ~700 MB, but will there be a way for a programmer to page/swap in data from, say, 2GB SD card? I will most likely be doing the memory card interface much like how Atari handled the CD ROM interface. You request a block (or series of) from the memory card through some memory mapped registers, then stream the data back in over the I2S bus. This allows the best the Jag can offer in terms of DMA streaming. I may also be doing some form of audio decompression on the micro on the card as well, such that you could request to play an MP3 and have this decompress on the card and stream over to the Jag as raw PCM data. So this would make Jag CD images smaller and also allow more flexibility for audio in any further games for the Jag. The access to the memory card would be native as well, so you could access as much data as the card contains, it wont be limited. Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Thanks a lot for your answers. I have couple more technical questions: I will most likely be doing the SD card interface much like how Atari handled the CD ROM interface. You request a block (or series of) from the SD card through some memory mapped registers, then stream the data back in over the I2S bus. This allows the best the Jag can offer in terms of DMA streaming. OK, so the way I read it, is that the cart's microcontroller will be monitoring some memory area in jag's 2 MB address space at a specific range of addresses (sort of like memory ports), so then a developer can directly control the functionality of the SD cart (be it memory transfer, Ethernet, or whatever else functionality it will have) at any point at run-time. So, this is how a memory transfer command might look like ? ; Transfer details DESTINATION_ADDRESS_JAG .equ $40000 SOURCE_ADDRESS_SD .equ $1F0300 BUFFER_LENGTH .equ $1000 ; SD-cart Registers SD_SRC .equ $XYZ1 SD_DST .equ $XYZ2 SD_LEN .equ $XYZ5 SD_CMD .equ $XYZ3 SD_STATUS .equ $XYZ4 SD_TRANSFER .equ $17 ; Code to request the transfer move.l #DESTINATION_ADDRESS_JAG, SD_DST move.l #SOURCE_ADDRESS_SD, SD_SRC move.l #BUFFER_LENGTH, SD_LEN move.l #SD_TRANSFER, SD_CMD I may also be doing some form of audio decompression on the micro on the card as well, such that you could request to play an MP3 and have this decompress on the card and stream over to the Jag as raw PCM data. So this would make Jag CD images smaller and also allow more flexibility for audio in any further games for the Jag SD. I don't understand the point of saving couple KBs on an basically unlimited SD card, where 1 TB costs 3 cents, as it's still going to have to be raw&uncompressed in jag's very small 2 MB memory, so what am I missing here ? Can you please leave this feature for after the launch ? The access to the SD would be native as well, so you could access as much data as the card contains, it wont be limited. Since 2^32 is only 4 GB, it's impossible to address more than that at a byte resolution. Which one of the following workarounds are you going for ? 1. Minimum Sector/Alignment size (e.g. using multiplies of 2,4,8,16,32,64,.....1,024+ KB) 2. 64-bit addressing This is obviously a very long shot, and it's something for you to think about, but is there any possibility I could temporarily borrow a partially working (just the memory transfers working) prototype (I'd pay manufacturing and shipping costs) and create some prototype that would be using the additional SD card memory (I'd release the demo for free download) ? I've created run-time streaming endless terrain components in past (that work with only small terrain subset in memory), but stream everything else from the filesystem, where the terrain size is limited only by the space on the harddrive. E.g. you have a 1kmx1km terrain chunk in memory, but as you move through world, the engine is streaming the other chunks from the filesystem (so it does not matter if the world is 10x10 km or 1000x1000 km). I'm using WorldMachine for terrain generation, btw. I understand if you wouldn't want to do that, but I figured I'd ask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted January 22, 2017 Author Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) If you want to see how data transfer might work from the memory card, look at the source code for accessing the Jaguar CD ROM via Butch. As I mentioned before, it will work in a very similar fashion. Any features like the MP3 decoding would likely come after initial release, yes -- not essential but nice to have. And as the microcontroller and CPLD will be updatable via software, anything can be done via updates. Memory cards are accessed in sectors -- larger ones anyway, the original spec used byte addressing as I remember, and hence was limited to 4GB. So that gives something like 2TB. I cant remember if block size varies at all from 512 bytes, but either way 2tb isnt going to be limitation. Actual hardware is a little way off yet, I'll consider what's happening when I have some units to give out. My priority will be making sure of compatibility with all commercial titles initially, but I welcome discussion of any features people may want so I can make sure the hardware is built with as much flexibility as possible. There is a fair bit of logic space on the CPLD at the moment, so additional functionality is possible... Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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