Project Veronica (Weronika?)

[+eebuckeye]

Are Weronika and Veronica the same cart?  Mine definitely says Weronika on the cart.  Are their programs people have created to use it?

 

Thanks!

[TheMontezuma]

Weronika (Veronica in polish) is a project from Zenon/DIAL:

http://www.serious-dial.atari.pl/zzone/weronika.html

 

The project was advertised at AtariAge as Veronica:

 

You can watch Nir's video to find out more about it:

 

 

[+Larry]

Curious about the Veronica Cartridge clock speed(s).  There are several different descriptions of the clock speed. That seems a bit odd.  Phaeron's description says Veronica Basic is running at 14 MHz.  Is it application selectable somehow?  Not trying to be picky, just curious about what it actually is.

 

-Larry

[+eebuckeye]

It is very cool but it does not seem like software has been written to use it?

[+slx]

6 hours ago, eebuckeye said:

It is very cool but it does not seem like software has been written to use it?

There are some demos and a BASIC AFAIK. Look for the original thread. Given the rather limited way for both processors to communicate, it takes some wrapping your head around how to code for that beast. You really need to think hard about how to distribute tasks between the two CPUs and when to swap RAM between them. I still think it's an elegant solution as it works with every 8-bit and would probably have been "doable" BITD.

[Faicuai]

1 hour ago, slx said:

There are some demos and a BASIC AFAIK. Look for the original thread. Given the rather limited way for both processors to communicate, it takes some wrapping your head around how to code for that beast. You really need to think hard about how to distribute tasks between the two CPUs and when to swap RAM between them. I still think it's an elegant solution as it works with every 8-bit and would probably have been "doable" BITD.

It is indeed, elegant and unique... a real, true CO-PROCESSOR, that can (literally) be plugged in, instantly, with absolutely no HW or OS changes on host-platform (that is F-beautiful, and a testament of Atari's architecture / flexibility).

 

I would also have loved to see this in a RIGHT-cart format, where it can be left plugged in on the 800 (/Incognito), without absolutely any contention of LEFT-cart port. Talk about the ideal platform for this co-processor (with the exception of not being able to address $8000-$BFFF from RIGHT port).

 

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind with Veronica is a perfect companion for DLI-intensive (Display List Interrupt) work. Have ANTIC running at its own pace and then naturally hand-off work to 6502 for servicing DL-interrupt, and then have 6502, in turn, handle cpu-intensive work to Veronica, wait for response, and then return control to ANTIC, and on-and-on... That would be interesting to see...

Edited September 8, 2019 by Faicuai

[Kyle22]

Yes, Yes, and Yes!

Especially Right cart support. That would be SO nice.

 

Edit: Imagine Carina BBS running on an Incognito with this. It could be faster than Pro!

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Kyle22
more info

[+slx]

9 hours ago, Faicuai said:

I would also have loved to see this in a RIGHT-cart format, where it can be left plugged in on the 800 (/Incognito), without absolutely any contention of LEFT-cart port. Talk about the ideal platform for this co-processor (with the exception of not being able to address $8000-$BFFF from RIGHT port).

 

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind with Veronica is a perfect companion for DLI-intensive (Display List Interrupt) work. Have ANTIC running at its own pace and then naturally hand-off work to 6502 for servicing DL-interrupt, and then have 6502, in turn, handle cpu-intensive work to Veronica, wait for response, and then return control to ANTIC, and on-and-on... That would be interesting to see...

The mind-bending thing about it is that the main 6502 doesn't really need to wait for Veronika but can continue working on whatever is needed while Veronika toils at 8 times the speed (and with more efficient opcodes) in the background. Would really lend itself to massive bit-mapped graphics (and maybe vertical player movement during VBLANK?) with the main CPU free for user input and game logic. I certainly lack the programming skills but it would be interesting to see what one of the 1980s Atari wizards could pull out of that setup.

 

It would surely have been the ultimate right hand cartridge, although taking off from there a combined Veronika-R-Time-SDX.....

[Mclaneinc]

In the right hands this cart could really make the good old Atari super charged...Imagine Elite with this powering it..The heavy calc games would be sublime..(of course, not just games!)

Edited September 8, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

A right cartridge is just a left cartridge with half the possible address range.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[_The Doctor__]

perhaps a keyhole arrangement in the available address range....

[foft]

On 9/7/2019 at 12:30 PM, Larry said:

Curious about the Veronica Cartridge clock speed(s).  There are several different descriptions of the clock speed. That seems a bit odd.  Phaeron's description says Veronica Basic is running at 14 MHz.  Is it application selectable somehow?  Not trying to be picky, just curious about what it actually is.

I think the released versions were all 14MHz (fixed). For the early ones shown in that video it was slower.

[foft]

I’ve always wanted to write a voxel engine for it. 6502 handles game logic, draws depth/colour map + sets camera. 65816 renders. One day.

 

To try the Veronica software out, remember it’s possible to have a slightly less good Veronica clone using the Ultimate Cart.

 

[+Larry]

That's very cool!  And thanks for posting this -- I'd completely missed your original thread. Someone had wanted to buy my original Veronica cart recently, so perhaps this will give them another opportunity to use Veronica.

-Larry

[Faicuai]

7 hours ago, foft said:

I’ve always wanted to write a voxel engine for it. 6502 handles game logic, draws depth/colour map + sets camera. 65816 renders. One day.

 

To try the Veronica software out, remember it’s possible to have a slightly less good Veronica clone using the Ultimate Cart.

 

F-SICK (!!!!)

 

No doubt, whatsoever, that #1 the Ultimate-Cart is, indeed, the ultimate one, and #2, Veronica's true co-processor concept is probably the way to go for enhancing almost everyone's retro-experience, with basically NO HW or SW modifications on host-system (which is a testament to the engineering of this solution).

 

Having said that, I believe that (in the way Veronica integrates and interacts with the host system), 14 MHz is just a stop-gag. It seems to me that, in order to fully realize Veronica's implementation, it should run anywhere between 100 Mhz to 200 Mhz (effective), that is, the fastest that 65816 may have been tested on the densest manufacturing process ever reached, as long as wattage and heat dissipation are properly handled by host Atari. Even the 6502 has reached successfully 150-200 Mhz on modern production speeds (!)

 

In this way, you will have a co-processor that can be used for off-loading almost ANYTHING that its memory-access model allows handling, thus reducing the need to consider any other upgrade of this type. In other words, not only a rue co-processor, but a real general-purpose one, which lends perfectly to assist the host Atari computer in many ways.

 

 

[drac030]

Is there a Veronica BASIC version newer than 0.1 from 2015 (17803 bytes)?

 

During tracing some issues in SDX I discovered that this version is loading/saving garbage when LOAD and SAVE keyword are used. I am going to trace that down anyway, but I wonder if there is anything new besides what I have.

 

Thanks!

 

[+Stephen]

3 hours ago, drac030 said:

Is there a Veronica BASIC version newer than 0.1 from 2015 (17803 bytes)?

 

During tracing some issues in SDX I discovered that this version is loading/saving garbage when LOAD and SAVE keyword are used. I am going to trace that down anyway, but I wonder if there is anything new besides what I have.

 

Thanks!

 

FWIW - I checked my entire archive, and I only have version 0.1

[phaeron]

v0.1 is the only released version. I had a WIP version that added some additional keywords for accessing Veronica memory (V(D)PEEK/V(D)POKE/VUSR) but don't think I released it.

 

LOAD/SAVE corruption issues are a bit strange... seems to work for me with 4.48 at least. Veronica Basic uses a 512 byte bounce buffer at $A000 to do large I/Os, so it does require the Veronica cart to be mapped in during I/O. Two things to watch out for:

• VBasic is not compatible with v1 Veronica carts that have multiple RAM chips, due to unsynchronized bank switching. Typically you would know this quickly, however, as the 65C816 crashes soon after startup.
• Veronica's control register is at $D5C0, in case that conflicts with the SDX cartridge type used.