Motorola 68060 FPGA replacement module (idea)

[Plaz]

In following the thread, Beanbag's suggestion of a FPGA/ARM combo is intriguing. Reminds me in a way of an Emplant board. I'd picture a proto/dev only board with 040/ARM/FPGA combo for developement of the FPGA. *IF* successful, then a production ARM/FPGA(040) for all kinds of interesting things. Not opposed to x86, but feel that's kind of covered already with AROS and UAE. Not speaking for anyone else, but I wouldn't go to much expense to put an x86 in my classic. BTW, I'm a master at soldering.  Perhaps time to brush off the old asm skills and get an ARM manaul?

Plaz

[Plaz]

@wawrzon

I'd prefer something more unique for my Amiga even if it wasn't bleeding edge on speed. For years I preferred and enjoyed my 50mhz Ami while other 300mhz, then 400, 500, 667, 733, 800, 933 and 1200mhz systems were made available. Imagine a classic at hundreds of mhz with ARM support.... cool.

Also such work could benefit future advances in things like minimig, fpgarcade and ... ??  And again, I'm not against x86, it's just less interesting for me. I also agree with earlier post that an x86 will probably need more supporting hardware on board than a FPGA.  Isn't "tying" an x86 to an Amiga buss going to require it?

Plaz

[Plaz]

i wouldnt mind people not taking solutions as amiga enough. ppc isnt amiga as well. people will complain and then shut up and want have when they see the results. all that runs available and potentially possible 68k codebase but faster is fine whatever the tech behind it.

As much as anything else we're hardware geeks, not just more GUI users. What's under the hood is as interesting or more so than what icon is being clicked. For flat out speed, apps, and support wintel is a great way to go. But if that's all everyone ever wanted there'd be no reason to hang around an Amiga site. If this were a "for profit" project, market research would say some wintel based solution would be the best option. But wait... we already have a wintel option. In reality this project will probably mostly be done for free and loose money. So devs might as well pick what's the most fun then.

Why did Amiga devs back in the day go PPC? Well two basic reasons I see....#1- it was Motorola and #2- it wasn't Intel. With current options, who knows what they might have chosen. Well I guess that's what we're working out now.

Plaz

[Plaz]

My issue with the FPGA/ARM combo chips is the price.

Cheaper if using individual chips? I'm poking around the internet and seeing some FPGA/ARM dev combo boards for around $150-200. FPGA on those probably to small for the 68K core though.

Plaz

[Plaz]

Different angle here..... Coldfire is not too far off from 68K instructions. A Coldfire V1 core is available for Altera FPGAs. Would it be a shorter easier journey to start with a Coldfire core and modify it to be more 68K compatible for our purpose?

EDIT: Hold on, I may be reading this Coldfire core information incorrectly. More study required.

EDIT 2: Yes, looks like my first comment was correct....  http://chipdesignmag.com/display.php?articleId=2371

Plaz

[Plaz]

Check the store for this thing at http://www.ip-extreme.com/corestore/

Um, yeah. That's not going to happen. Darn, thought I had something there.

Plaz

[Plaz]

@billt
Is this the ARM project you mentioned? Doesn't look like much aditional worl has been done in a while.

http://opencores.com/project,core_arm

Plaz

[Plaz]

I took bloodline's reference as a point of study of how to do another cpu project, not necessarily an ARM.

I haven't messed with VHDL in an uncountable number of years. Someone please point me to a good reference where I can retrain some brain cells on some tools needed here.

Plaz

[Plaz]

He asked for references to retrain his brain since he hadn't used VHDL in so long... So book links seemed appropriate.

Yes thanks. It's the type info I was after. It's so long ago I'm not sure Verilog was even an option back when I dabbled in VHDL. I'd need to see some verilog too, but figured I'd start in familiar territory.


Edit: Looks like they were born within a couple years of each other, but IEEE standard for VDHL ~1987 and IEEE for Verilog ~1993. My small experience falls around that 87-88 time.

Plaz

[Plaz]

Natami on the other hand needed to lock out anyone from coming along who could write better VHDL.

This seems counter intuitive. Bit of a dig a Natami management I presume.

Plaz

[Plaz]

I think we're at the second of these currently with Yaqube's work.

So our best option so far for FPGA implementation then is to support Yaqube's efforts? Does he want or need help, are there resources he needs to help things along?

Plaz

[Plaz]

The best situation is that he release the HDL-resources. Other than that one could start with TG68 and work from there.

TG68 source looks like a good starting point, but if Yaqube is well on the way to creating the core needed, then wouldn't it be preferred to support that goal instead of duplicating the effort? Is his project so different in FPGArcade that it wouldn't work well here? I've not followed FPGArcade very closely, will the work be open or closed source?

Plaz

[Plaz]

It's hard to work with sources that you don't have

Shout out to Mr. obvious.

To the point..... has Yaqube ever mentioned opening the source?
For the answer to that, I guess I'll just go ask him myself. (predicting the answer is no)

Second question.... anyone know what detailed documentation is available for 060? Schematic of the internals would be the bomb.  I think I still have my 030 motorola dev books from back in the day. Guess I can start there.

Plaz

[Plaz]

Let's focus on the design rather than repeating the basics. Please?

Agreed, but so far I'm hearing we don't have the basics covered yet. No core, design no go. Even if starting with TG68... must compare were it is to where it needs to go.

Plaz

[Plaz]

FYI - if referencing the TG68 VDHL code you'll need this link to the latest version 1.08.
http://tinyurl.com/LatestTG68
The "download" button on the project page has older version 1.0

Plaz