FPGA Replay Board

[ChaosLord]

Why?

Because its a simulation and simulations are not real.  You can make up 1000 different simulations of something and get 1000 different answers.  

If they actually knew the answer for a fact then it would be called a Calculation, not a simulation.  Right?

[ChaosLord]

MOVE16 is barely worth using on a 68k Amiga and I'm the author of CopyMem mentioned above.

Hehe that is how I always felt about it.  I was a really hardcore asm coder and yet I never used Move16.  I coded a bunch of special purpose copy routines for high speed screen updates.  I thought about making a special version for use on CPUs that have the Move16 instruction but I was like, meh...   So all my gfx copying routines just use move.l.  I really should force myself to write a move16 version.  Someone told me once that it conflicted with certain hardware.  Any truth to that?

[ChaosLord]

I'm not afraid of the truth whatever it is . There probably are Amiga programs that benefit from using MOVE16 for larger memory copies but they would be rare. Also, future programs could potentially benefit.

If I copy 327K from fastram to fastram, how much speedup would Move16 provide?

If I copy 327K from fastram to chipram, how much speedup would Move16 provide?

[ChaosLord]

I was quoted a price of 1015 Euros for a fully loaded Replay with all bells, whistles and gizmos and case and power supply and 64GB SDXC memory card.

I quickly agreed so I could get onto the Replay preorder list.

I figured it would be like $1200.00 which I happen to have in my bank account, just barely.

But when I later googled I found out that 1015 Euros = $1364.00

CRIKEY!

Now I think I understand why ppl buy their own cases and power supplies!

I can rob my grocery cash to pay the difference so I can still buy the Replay.  Since they won't let me buy it right this second I am thinking I should investigate cases and power supplies.

I just don't know anything about cases or power supplies.  What kind would I need to get?  Are they routinely sold cheaply at NewEgg?

Does it matter which one I get?  Any secret gotchas?

Is it important to buy a very super specific case so that the memory cards can be easily swapped?

I am thinking that if I did go ahead and buy my own case and powersupply that I could avoid a 25% tax to the King of Sweden and another 33% tax to the Exchange Rate Powers That Be.

I don't mind paying 58% tax to MikeJ, Yaqube or anyone who worked on Replay.  They deserve my $$$.   But I don't like to pay tax to governments that don't deserve it or to the Exchange Rate Gods.

What kind of cases and power supplies are you guys getting?

[ChaosLord]

ChaosLord,
Who has quoted you this?

Your friend Laurent.  I thought he was like ur official preorder, sales, marketing type of person?

I just want to be on the official "I really seriously want a Replay + 060 card and am willing to pay for it" list.  I want you guys to succeed!  I am trying to do what I can to make u guys succeed.  If u need me to prepay I am willing to do that, if it will help ur cashflow situation and get things rolling.  I know that cash can get really really tight when you first do a production run.

There is no pricing for the daughterboard yet. Please mail me privately.

He said the price was an estimated 300 Euros for daughtercard with MMU+FPU but that it depended on a lot of things.  (I take this to mean it will end up being a higher price

If you are outside the EU then you will pay no VAT - although you may pay import duty.

I have only ordered from a couple of countries and never had to pay import fees.  Definitely no import fees from China or UK.

The guide price for the main board (from me) is expected therefore to be 199EU (without comp/svhs) or 229-239EU with. Exact pricing is dependant on import duty and final manufacture cost, and may vary between runs with exchange rate.

I would make this 270 USD for the base board + shipping.
If the board is from one of my resellers, they then charge for integration, cases and support etc so the price will be higer.
/MikeJ

My quote was for a model with everything.  Even the composite video output which I have no intention of ever using.  But since you went to all the trouble to build it, I will pay u $$$ for it.  If you had a model with PCI slots I would pay extra for that.  Or if there was a model with 2GB of ram I would pay extra for that.  Even if I have to sell a kidney.  I support Amiga hardware manufacturers.  I always have.  I sold hundreds of Amigas for C= and thousands of C64s back in the day.  I am a hardcore Amiga supporter.

But I am a little confused.  You are saying I can buy directly from you if I choose?  And that you only sell the bare boards?

Or I could wait until Amikit stocks them?  Or is Amikit not going to be a reseller?  (I know there is no tax of any kind from UK Amikit).  I just don't know if Amikit will be offering a fully put together system.  What I call a "mass market" model.  With the Replay in a case with power suppl and any needed backplanes or power adapters or other needed gizmos.  A product that when you get it you just plug it in and it comes on and works.  

The thing is I am trying to talk another guy into buying a Replay.  He is interested. So I spent hours typing him emails to explain Replay to him.  But he absolutely positively needs a put together system.  So I figure if I am going to go around talking ppl into buying a Replay that I should buy the exact model and setup that they would be buying (to make sure there are no problems).  I don't really like selling products that I don't actually own.  I need to own exactly what I am selling.  I also need to know prices.  I gave him an estimated price of $1000.00.  WOOPS!  Live and learn.

[ChaosLord]

€800 is a lot for a case, power supply, some memory cards, etc!

300 Euros for Daughtercard.  110 Euros for Shipping.

Also it included an ATX power adapter.  What does that do?

And don't forget the IO Backplane thingy.  I want a completely professional setup to the limit of what MikeJ and Yaqube produce.  If they make a backplane that costs money then I am just assuming that it is a nice thing to have?  So I should pay for that right?

Get a mini-Itx case with PSU or without PSU (but then you need a picoPSU + 12V AC/DC convertor (aka external brick)).

What are the advantages / disadvantages of internal vs. external powersupply for Replay?

All my other computers have an internal power supply.  All my PCs have internal power supplies.  So does my A1200T/060 and my A3000s and my A2000.

[ChaosLord]

Uhmmm.... I just realized something...

There is no VGA connector....

Please tell me I am going blind and missed it!

How am I going to connect this to any of my CRT Monitors?  I own a few Multisync monitors which work perfectly with NTSC and PAL and they have VGA connectors.  No DVI or HDMI.  I own a few 1084S monitors and some have VGA connectors others have something else but they came with adapters.  No DVI or HDMI on my 1084S monitors.

I only own 1 monitor with HDMI connectors and it doesn't do PAL according to the instruction manual.   It claims to only support a few common PC modes.  In any case that monitor is 100 feet away in another room, far away from my internet computer.  The funny thing is that computer with the HDMI connectors also has Composite and VGA connectors and the Windows XP and Windows 7 PC looks best on the VGA connector.   For some reason every computer my brother connects to the HDMI looks bad compared to VGA.  Its weird because his XBOX 360 and PS3 look fantastic on the HDMI inputs.  His Wii looks pretty smeary on the composite.


I wanted to use my Replay on one of my CRT monitors.  What am I going to do? :confused:

And don't say "use composite".  No way in hell am I connecting a super deluxe $1400.00 Replay to a silly blurry smeary composite video connection.

[ChaosLord]

@Fahrenheit

Whew!
Thanx for the infos!
I was really scared for a minute there :nervous:

Note to self: Replay connects to VGA with simple adapter.

[ChaosLord]

@ChaosLord:

No problem, a simple VGA / DVI adapter and it works.

I use that on my 17'' TFT for connecting the FPGA Replay board on it.

This adapter is gifted if people need it.

Thanks, Laurent aka Faranheit

You should put this in your advertising materials.

You have lots of nice pics on your website but I don't remember seeing one about "Connects easily to VGA monitors with an adapter like this:"

Silly me  :insane: didn't know it was easy to adapt DVI into VGA.  Never done it before so I didn't know.

[ChaosLord]

@broken

Some 1084S monitors have a VGA connector on the back.  I suppose all the ones from the last production run had them?

[ChaosLord]

Are the other nonAmiga cores compatible with the 060 daughtercard?

Like lets say I want to try out the Atari 2600 core and play some great oldsk00l Activision games (yes Activision used to make awesome games).  Would my "Atari 2600" function correctly with a big bad monster 060 card bolted on top?

Does any Atari 2600 core even exist?

If not then please substitute ColecoVision or C64 in the above paragraph.

[ChaosLord]

If I use an Atari 800 core there is only 1 game I would want to play on it.  That is M.U.L.E. with all 4 joystick ports at a M.U.L.E. party.  The C64 version has much better music but 2 of the players must use the keyboard during the auctions.  Letting everyone have their own joystick on the Atari 800 is much kewler.


We would plug in all 4 joysticks into the Replay... woops... there are only 2 joystick ports....  Ok so obviously the Atari 800 core, being highly professional and containing all needed features, would look to the daughterboard for the other 2 joystick ports.

My Elite 68060 daughterboard should supply joystick ports 3 and 4 because a bunch of Amiga games use them... but it does not... so the Atari Core just starts sending out a bunch of signals that make no sense to my 68060 daughterboard and everything would then go berzerk.    This is what I am trying to avoid.

[ChaosLord]

How many ppl have Replays already?  Isn't it like 30 ppl?  Where are all these ppl?  Do they have some secret meeting place where they hang out and laff at all us oldsk00l A1200 lamers?  :lol:

The reason I ask is because if I am going to drop $1436.00 on a fully loaded Retro Replay Business Computer then I should probably make sure my game actually works on the Replay first.    Free download from Aminet here if anyone out there has a Replay and they want to check if it works:
http://aminet.net/package/game/strat/TotalChaosAGAr6

It really should work.  It is fully AmigaOS compliant and has been tested on a wide range of systems.  The only thing I am worried about is maybe if the Paula core has a tiny flaw in it then the music playback could go berzerk.  Mostly Octamed Sound Studio .meds and some good old protracker mods but modified to use a 1 line DMA-wait.

I don't use any weird instructions like movep.  I don't use weirdo lame addressing modes.  I don't even use bitfield instructions.  But I suppose maybe SASC might generate those in weird situations?  I doubt it but who knows?  I don't use any atomic Read-Modify-Write instructions.  So I am figuring it should work on the softcore cpu.  On the other hand, it is over 200,000 lines of code so...

There is a bug in the game so that soundfx playback can fail on SFS partitions.  Use FFS, PFS3 or ask me for the patch that fixes the problem.

Any place I could go to ask a Replay playtester to give it a quick test?

If there are any bugs, well... I have the source code to the whole game and a super powerful professional Source Level Debugger which displays both C and Asm sources simultaneously so I might be able to zoom right in on the problem and file a competent bug report.

[ChaosLord]

I have a board with external 68K I can run to see if it's a problem with the CPU (I can actually run both CPUs and diff them in real time).

I can also probe and capture any internal state with the JTAG FPGA debugger...

Wow!  my hero :bowdown:

[ChaosLord]

I have no idea when Replays will go on sale so I just sort of casually started shopping for bits and pieces to make my Ultimate Tactical Assault Replay Business Computer of Death(tm).

Here is a 32GB Micro SDHC card for $14.39 with promo code, limit 5 per customer.  And Free shipping.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313184&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20313184-L016A

Would that be acceptable for use in a Replay?  Yes/no/maybe/depends?

- its only 32GB
+ its cheap at $14.39 so even a poor lamer like me can afford it :laugh1:
+ it doesn't feel like I am getting raped by the exchange rate. :rofl:

If it will work... what would be the advantages of buying multiple ones?  

All u guys out there who have CF cards and such on ur Amiga, how many cards do u use and what do u use them for?


Would this card work on both the Replay board itself and/or the daughtercard?  (atm I am all mixed up about it... trying to remember... my brain have a stack overflow

[ChaosLord]

After a brief check it seems like the 64GB versions are $41.00 and the 128GB versions are $100.00  so the 32GB cards give the most GB per $

So even though I need and can use 128GB storage space I will probably just buy the 32GB ones since they are dirt cheap.  I will try to survive with a tiny hard drive...  I just hafta decide how many to buy....