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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Tripitaka on September 25, 2008, 01:56:01 AM
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With the SAM Mobo now available with OS4.1 I was wondering:
Has anyone thought about projects to use the onboard FPGA? :inquisitive:
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Does anyone actually know what the FPGA is connected to?
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I did drop a mail off to the developers/resellers/personwhoownsthewebsite but got no response.
Also asked on here as well .. but no response as well.
It would be nice to know what tools would be provided to upload your own designs into the FPGA, but I'd bet money the software doesn't exist yet ... well maybe just bet $1 just in case ;-)
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It would be nice to know what tools would be provided to upload your own designs into the FPGA, but I'd bet money the software doesn't exist yet ... well maybe just bet $1 just in case
Anyone with enough skills to do FPGA work shouldn't have much problems writing a small program to do the job uploading configurations.
However It is very unlikely that you will ever see tools on AmigaOS needed to generate the bit files (as these are proprietary and provided by the FPGA vendor). But you really what the most powerful computer you can afford for that task and the SAM is not it.
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Hi Sparky,
Sparky wrote:
....
It would be nice to know what tools would be provided to upload your own designs into the FPGA, but I'd bet money the software doesn't exist yet ... well maybe just bet $1 just in case ;-)
Sam440 uses a LatticeXP FPGA.
There is a free version (Windows) of the tools required to program one of these devices available from the Lattice website at:
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/designsoftware/isplever/ispleverstarter/index.cfm
Sam440 manual says that J9 is a JTAG connector for the FPGA, so you will need a Lattice flavoured download cable.
Haven't seen a schematic for the SAM board yet, so couldn't speculate much more at this point, though the manual does say there are 80 available I/Os on J4 which are connected to the FPGA.
Anyone have a link to a schematic?
Red
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I suppose it depends how its accessed but since this is an Amiga site how about some of the custom chip functionality, note that I don't say "chips" themselves, to aid emulation? :-D
Aside from that perhaps some form of expansion like a bluetooth/zigbee controller (the actual part being connected via the 80-pin I/O header).
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Would it be possible to programme it with a form of the Minimig software? Coupled with a physical FPGA switch and two chips (one with the firmware required for OS4 and the other with the Minimig software) you could have an OS4 machine with "Classic mode" :-)
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moto
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Hi Moto,
motorollin wrote:
Would it be possible to programme it with a form of the Minimig software?
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moto
Not with the LatticeXP chip on the board.
Did a bit of hunting and found this block diagram of the sam44ep:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/acube_sam440ep_board_diag.gif
From the diagram you could say that:
1. It's only a small FPGA , bit hard to read but looks like a XP6C to me.
More info on the XP chips here:
http://www.latticesemi.com/products/fpga/xp/
1. The FPGA is isolated from much of the rest of the system, only seeming to have access to the local bus, eeprom, disk on chip, and smart media controller. (and CPU of course).
Red.
p.s Something like this:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/devkits/aes_v5fxt_evl30-avnet.htm
Could run the minimig software (using soft core 68k), and theoretically run a modded version of OS4.1 using the on board 440 processor core :) ......
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I seem to recall someone asking about the Natami's "Super AGA" with regard to the SAM board on the Natami forums. Sadly I think it was too big. Shame if that's the case (and I'm sure it is), it would have been interesting. Still, I'm glad to see some good feedback here. Thanks to all and special thanks to RedskullDC for the links.
How about an FPGA SID ? That could be fun.
One thing I'd love to see would be an Azimuth mount controller that worked with Digital Universe from syzygy.
To quote from the syzygy website:
"Digital Universe will not have an official Arexx port until version 2 but there is an undocumented experimental Arexx port to see if things work. This grab shows some Arexx commands controlling DU. A screen grab cannot show much but using Arexx to Zoom in and out of the view works quite well. A simple demonstration Arexx script will be included with DU1.5. A fully featured Arexx command set will be left until version 2" :-D
Arexx plug-in - FPGA controller - sounds plausible.
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As I understand it the FPGA is used by the SAM itself on a system level, so you wouldn't be able to just program it with your own stuff...
I could be wrong though.
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One thing I'd love to see would be an Azimuth mount controller that worked with Digital Universe from syzygy.
Arexx plug-in - FPGA controller - sounds plausible.
I do not know much about the FPGA side of things, I use an Amiga One rather than a SAM. However, the Arexx feature set in v2.x of Digital Universe should certainly be able to output the data you would need.
It may be some time off though, I am still working on v1.6.
Bill.
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Tripitaka wrote:
Has anyone thought about projects to use the onboard FPGA? :inquisitive:
I guess it could be used for various hardware acceleration tasks (media codecs etc) since the Sam CPU is rather weak.
Does it have access to system RAM?
I think the FPGA is dead weight that not even Acube sees a purpose with (or else we whould have seen a use for it already) and only makes the design more expensive. I had hoped they would have removed it in the Flex design, but that doesn't seem to be the case?
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List of ideas.
Feel free to contribute.
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=27379&forum=33
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KimmoK wrote:
List of ideas.
Feel free to contribute.
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=27379&forum=33
Many interesting ideas. However, some of them are simply not realistic, and some others would better be achieved by regular PCI cards. But a lot of creative ideas nevertheless! :-)