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Author Topic: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?  (Read 3936 times)

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Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« on: December 11, 2016, 06:27:25 AM »
Just spotted this card on Hack-A-Day today, which claims to be an open source Zorro II/III card for A2000/3000/4000: http://hackaday.com/2016/12/10/amiga-zorro-hdmi-graphics-card-hits-the-market/

Here's a link to the authors site (apparently sold out already): http://shop.mntmn.com/product/mnt-va2000-amiga-graphics-card-zorro-ii-iii

I've not heard of this project before. Apparently the card is RTG compatible and fully upgradable/hackable by the user.

...Some of the comments are fantastic:
Quote
Amiga has become a sysinfo loader a long time ago. All those addons are used only to satisfy memberies, to load sysinfo and bask in the glory of red bar being longer than blue bars
 

Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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Re: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2016, 12:11:06 PM »
I'm actually very surprised that they haven't posted a video of it in action - Dropped them an email, hopefully they come through with something.
 

Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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Re: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2016, 12:13:13 PM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;817583
Information about that card pops up periodically on the various Amiga Facebook pages and Google+. Seems like a nice card. I meant to share something a few weeks ago but life got in the way. :(

Sadly a lot of decent "homebrew" Amiga hardware doesn't get shared on this forum, and without support of any major manufacturer or distributor, often languishes in relative obscurity. :(


I hear you on both counts man, life has been kicking everyone in the dick this year. I hope for the creators sake that the card takes off. Always good to see new hardware, even better to see Open hardware.
 

Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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Re: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2016, 02:34:03 PM »
Quote from: LoadWB;817633
My biggest problem with video cards is the lack of native video pass-through.  It is so much easier to have an all-in-one solution to reduce the number of devices need to work with my systems, or special monitors or switches, etc.  My PIV and Retina both have FF/SD pass-through, which is great.  Even if I had to buy an Indivision to FF/SD the native signal then pass that through an RTG card.

I guess the required signals don't appear at the Zorro bus to handle this sort of thing internally. With that said, I wonder if it's feasible to do something exceptionally sh*tty, like grab the RGB/CSYNC signals from Denise using an additional adaptor, feed them to the card, and process/upscale them to output via HDMI using the onboard FPGA when native video is in use?

The signals out of Denise (and prior to VIDIOT on the A2000) are digital, 13 signals in total assuming we'd only need R[0:3], G[0:3], B[0:3], and CSYNC - Conceptually it wouldn't be all that complex of a task for an FPGA
« Last Edit: December 12, 2016, 02:40:00 PM by CodePoet »
 

Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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Re: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2016, 12:46:31 AM »
Quote from: Thomas Richter;817642

Such a sh*tty thing already exists, namely in the form of the Indivision.


Haha shots fired!

Love your work though, Thomas. Thanks for clarifying. I figured there would have to be some frame buffering at the very least, but it's good to know that it's been tried before.
 

Offline CodePoetTopic starter

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Re: A new open source 'Zorro' Graphics Card?
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2016, 12:48:18 AM »
Quote from: LoadWB;817662
Which you can get from an Indivision.  At least HDMI switching is fairly easy and inexpensive, but I am not certain about automated (one priority source.)

EDIT: Well, shut my mouth!
https://www.startech.com/AV/Switchers/3-Port-HDMI-Auto-Switch-with-IR-Remote-Control~VS123HD


...And they're like five bucks on Ebay!