FPGA Replay Board

[amigadave]

Can we get a spec sheet posted on your website MikeJ for the components that are to be installed on the daughter board.  I don't think there is a list anywhere that describes it in detail, or I just have not found it.

IIRC, from the picture of it, it has 3 USB ports, additional RAM, but I don't know how much is planned, and the Ethernet Port.

A custom graphics card that could use already existing CyberGraphX4 or Picasso96 drivers, would be a very nice addition for the Replay board and daughter card.  Is that something that is even possible?

[amigadave]

MikeJ will be able to answer in more depth, I'm sure, but my understanding is that the output modes selectable, is something which is entirely determined by the core itself, and then any drivers written in AmigaOS to support what the core supports.

The Replay Board itself is capable of outputting just about anything: it is equipped with a DVI socket on the back capable of outputting both digital and analog signal outputs.  The rest is entirely up to the core.  As for precisely what Minimig AGA supports screenmodes-wise, that's something that only MikeJ or Jakub can answer right now.  As for custom graphics card support, well a lot would depend on what exactly you have in mind.  But my understanding is that if what you want is Picasso-style graphics card support, then I'm pretty sure that support can and will in due time be implemented in FPGA as well.  There's no need for a physical card via the expansion slot, just as there's no need for physical AGA chips to gain AGA compatibility, it can all be done in FPGA.

On the question of Chip RAM, I know it is possible to expand Chip RAM from the standard AGA 2MB up to a massive 50MB(!). There is a Youtube video from last year which which shows this in action; the additional Chip RAM can be activated by executing an 'xchip' command in the AmigaShell.  Chip RAM availability then shoots up from 2MB to 50MB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn4ZzLH6MpE (it's at around the 1:10 mark.)

I know that the display modes are controllable by the core, but my question, or hope was that more advanced display modes could be supported with an actual graphics RTG card connected to the Replay board, or to it's daughter card.  Display modes from the core will be limited to the softcore AGA code and it would be nice if there was a way to also have some more powerful, better looking display modes from a video card.

Thanks for the answer about the Chip RAM, as I had forgotten what was done with that.  So many Amiga choices these days, it is hard to keep up with all of them.

[amigadave]

A brief update.
Boards are shipping. I am working through the list of everybody who has contacted me as I can test and ship board. If you haven't received a email yet, you will!

I have produced a version of the core based on Yacube's 060 version, but with internal softcore again. This has also picked up some of the generic Replay libs and I am working on a general code and timing cleanup in parallel with the Yacube's work.

As was mentioned, this code does contain a "video card" capable of hi-res output over DVI, when the CPU core is fixed.
Best,
Mike

I assume that this new core is available for download somewhere on your site?  I would like to update my board to the latest developments, but I hope it is possible without wiping the other software that came on my SD Card when I got it from you.  This will be my first attempt at updating any kind of FPGA device.

[amigadave]

Have you decided yet whether you'll be doing another run of boards?

I am sure he will be doing future production runs.  This is a great product and should have a long life of future enhancements and will be used by many Amiga users as well as former Atari users and fans of Arcade systems.

[amigadave]

Hi Mike. I pre-ordered the daughterboard from Yaqube when it was initially discussed...am I still on the list for pre-orders of the first batch ?




Espen

I had not seen any discussion about "pre-ordering" the daughter boards.

If there is a list of people that want to purchase these daughter boards, please add me to that list.  I would like to be one of the first people to get one of them.  I doubt a price has been set for them, but if an estimated price has been discussed, please repeat what it might be.

[amigadave]

will this board ever be forsale to the masses seems to be taking ages ,it would have been better if people kept it in the background like natami thingy ,then we wouldnt have to pull our hair out waiting , or is this board just for the elite as usual?

I don't know what the "Elite" are that you are writing about, and I strongly disagree with your assessment that MikeJ should have kept quiet about this project until it was ready for sale.  Mike has provided good information and listened to many users who have provided feedback and suggestions for this project.  It is refreshing to see a project manager who has been as open and responsive to his prospective buyers as MikeJ has been, and I can only wish that more of the Amiga project members were as open and responsive as Mike has been.  Many other people here agree with this, as has been discussed previously in this and other threads.

You should be able to buy one of these soon.  Mike has been ironing out the last few remaining bugs and you must realize that this is a one man project, except for the other guys that have been working on improvements to the 68k core, which is only one part of this total package.  I think that Yacube might be helping with work on the expansion daughter board, but ultimately it is Mike that is getting everything manufactured and assembled.  These things take time and I am sure he has a full time job and some kind of family life too, so be patient and make sure you are on the list of people that want to buy one of these.  Then sit back and relax and wait for your turn to arrive.

It is a great project and has tons of expansion and future enhancements that could be available in the future.  I think MikeJ is a very talented guy to rival even Jens Schoenfeld of Individual Computers and that is high praise indeed.

So, don't get so impatient that you piss off the person you are trying to get new hardware from.  I am sure he is working as fast as he can on this project.

[amigadave]

In the past (months ago) I have enquired with MikeJ about the Arcade FPGA but I am not sure I was actually put on a pre-order list. So I messaged him again to make sure that if I am not on the first batch, he puts my name on for the second

Do you guys know if he answers messages? He hasn't answered my last few when I enquired if I was on his list :/

I have had good luck receiving replies to emails, or PMails, but sometimes it takes several days to get a reply.  He is a busy guy.

I think there is a good chance that you may be on the list already if you asked to be placed on it a while ago.  Cross your fingers for luck.  

[amigadave]

Not quite sure what you mean, I'm talking about a softcore update.
The daughter board will add ethernet and usb connectors, maybe digital audio and some other odds and ends which will set just above the current sd/dvi connector.

The io panel just gets some more holes in it.
The base board is staying as it is!
/MikeJ

This has probably already been asked, or suggested.  Do you have the layout of the daughter board finalized with it's external port placement fixed, so you could make the i/o panels made with easily removable openings for the daughter board ports, in addition to the openings for the Replay board?  The ports openings for the daughter board could be cut out all the way except for at two or four slender points of metal holding the closed opening in place that could be easily removed if/when the owner of the Replay board gets a daughter board to add to his Replay system.  In this way you could produce one i/o panel for Replay boards with and without the daughter boards.

I hope this makes sense.  It is harder to describe than it is to make.

Edit:  Is the revised daughter board design going to sit above the double height Joystick ports, or will the daughter board have a cut-out to go around the higher ports?  I know the first design of the Replay did not have those ports stacked on top of each other and some comment was made which I thought said that the revised daughter board would have a cut-out and go around the stacked ports, so it would not be on top of them.  I suppose it could sit on top of the stacked ports, but have the Ethernet and USB ports on the underside of the daughter boards, so that they would still fit in the space of the i/o panel.  If the daughter board sits lower and close to the top of the Replay boards FPGA and other chips, will heat be a concern with the reduced airflow?

[amigadave]

Getting sick of seeing this thread and thought i'd have a look to see what it was all about. I did and I have to say,  
@thread:

tl;dr.

Too long; Did not Read.

Well, with over 138,000 views, there are many of us that have been watching this thread very closely and like what we have seen.

If you need a summary of what the FPGA Arcade Replay board is, visit MikeJ's website and have a look around.

In just a few short words, I would describe it as a step above and beyond the MiniMig v1.1 that can run a modified core which includes AGA and is capable of running at a speed that is comparable to a 68020 @ 50MHz (or was that a 68030 @ 50MHz?).  The CPU is a softcore on the main Replay board, so it is only limited by the efficiency of the softcore code and the timing frequency of the FPGA itself.  It comes with 64mb RAM.

It will soon have a daughter card that will have additional RAM, USB ports, Ethernet, and a socket that you can install your own 68060 CPU into and clock it up to 100MHz or beyond, depending on which revision mask of the 68060 you provide for it.

It is a very promising project and MikeJ has been very receptive in listening to, and providing feedback to potential customers.

I showed the FPGA Arcade Replay board at the AmiWest 2011 Show last October and it generated a lot of excitement and interest.

I can't remember any other threads on this site that have had over 138,000 views and over 1,300 replies.  It is pretty clear that it will be a successful product when it is finally available in greater numbers.

[amigadave]

Sorry but I am curious, how is implemented the Kickstart?

Like UAE, you copy your own Kickstart from ROM to a file and load it onto the SD card.  When the FPGA Arcade Replay board or MiniMig are turned on the Kickstart file and workbench, or game are loaded into the FPGA chip right after the core that turns the FPGA into a device that acts like the Amiga hardware.

Or something like that.

[amigadave]

1. It has a 9 pin serial on the back and enough io pins on the patch panel if you fancy wiring up and adapter. It also has two cable headers with more io pins where you can connect to an adapter (should one exist).

2. yup.
/MikeJ

That is good news, as I also have a Miracle Piano keyboard that I would like to be able to use with the Replay board.  Of course I would need instructions on how to make an adapter to get it connected and working, if something more complicated than a simple 9pin to 23pin Serial port adapter is required.

Maybe someone else with mechanical ability and electronic smarts will make a few of these adapters for dummies like me to purchase in the future.

What about a Parallel port that is compatible with the original Amiga's parallel port for devices like the DCTV, DSS8+, or other peripherals that need a connection to an Amiga parallel port?  Would that be possible with some extra code using the available extra i/o pins?

[amigadave]

One board ordered (presumably from batch 2)

You aren't THE Dennis are you?  The one who invented the MiniMig?

Does anyone know what Dennis is up to these days?  I heard that ACube sends Dennis a portion of every sale of the MiniMig's that they sell, which I hope is true.

[amigadave]

What kind of pinout does that Miracle piano keyboard use really?

If there's pins to do it, then yes. Only the voltage level conversion might need some extra components to deal with. But the question is .. why?
A lot better stuff could be wired via the USB port etc.

I thought from my post the "Why" would be self evident.  For some people the MiniMig and Replay boards, plus the Chameleon and other FPGA based computers that can run an Amiga core, are an alternative to owning an original Amiga, or a new modern replacement for their original Amiga that has died.  Many of those people own peripherals that they once used on their original Amiga computers and might want to use them again on a modern replacement, since the FPGA clones are able to run almost all Amiga software, it would also be good if they could use some of the old Amiga third party hardware expansions, like the Miracle piano keyboard, a DCTV paint and image capture device, and other devices that connected to the Serial, or Parallel ports.

I have a large collection of Amigas that include many such peripherals, so why wouldn't I want to continue using them with these modern Amiga clones?  Of course, if the work to create an equivalent Serial and/or Parallel port for these new FPGA computers is too difficult or costly, then it makes no sense to do it, but if it is relatively easy to do, then why not?

After all, isn't the Amiga community motto, "We did it just because we can"?

Edit:  I have a USB to Parallel port adapter that I bought to run an old large format printer from my Windows PC.  Maybe something like that will also work on the Replay's daughter board (which will have 3 USB ports) to connect devices originally designed to connect to an Amiga Parallel port.  It does not provide the correct 23pin port on it, so another gender changer would be needed to make the connection, which makes the whole experiment harder to accomplish.

[amigadave]

Please send me an email.
Yes, shopping cart is going to happen.
I have boards everywhere at the moment, but I do have a bit of a backlog.
Unfortunately I am going back to China for a week which will delay shipping. I will go and see the factory and make sure more are on the way though, which is good.
/MikeJ

Is my understanding correct, that you will eventually (I mean in a few more months, not a few more years) be able to automate, I mean have the pcb manufacturer, or component assembler, do more of the work in producing your Replay boards, so that you can produce more of them and meet the demand?

Will you be able to produce 100 to 200 boards at a time, so that everyone that wants one will have a chance to buy one?  Have you considered partnering with AmigaKit, or Vesalia, or even ACube to help you with funding to get more of the Replay boards manufactured and sold?

I just want to see you succeed big with this product and the more people using them means more developers will be tinkering with them and improving the core code and possibly making other expansions for the Replay.  It is a great product and I think it can sell in the thousands, if marketed correctly to a wide variety of hobbyist, including Amiga, Atari, Arcade games, C64 and many other groups of retro users.  The expansion connector was a great idea, good luck MikeJ.

Edit:

In short, the FPGA Arcade Replay board is one of the few products in the Amiga community that I see great potential for selling to other groups and thereby becoming more of a mass marketed product that could actually be sold in large chain stores, once it is perfected and packaged to properly attract a wider audience.

[amigadave]

Partnerships involves entanglements. Better that mikej keeps 100% controll without the company politics.
Better wait for next good batch, than get 1000s of units with corporate BS.

Mike could get a partner to help pay the cost of producing a large number of boards, but still retain complete control of the product.  It would just raise the price of the board a little bit if he decides to sell it through a third party distributor who needs to make a profit on the sales.

I want Mike to stay in control too.  He is doing a good job so far, but I thought the only thing that he might take advantage of it some help in getting it assembled and packaged, so he could concentrate on the important stuff like completing work on the core and finalizing the design work on the daughterboard.

Keep up the great work Mike.  The Replay has our attention and is a great product that will only continue to get better with age.

[amigadave]

They are shipping now, just slowly as I work through the pre-orders.
It takes a lot of time to hand assemble and test each board.
Now I have FCC and CE approval I'm going ahead with mass production.
/Mike

Going ahead with "mass production"!  That is great news Mike.  Would you care to share what "Mass Production" means?  How many boards are going to be manufactured and assembled in the next production run?

Glad to see that you worked out the last few obstacles that were delaying this day from happening.  The FPGA Arcade Replay board is a great project and I think it has good potential for future expansion and enhancements in both speed and features.

Please let us know all the details that you can.  One of the best things about the FPGA Arcade Replay board is that you have been so open and have shared every step with us about what has been going on behind the scenes without all the silly secrecy that happens with almost every other Amiga related project.  Your open communication has been a breath of fresh air in this community.

Great work and good luck with your plans (what ever they are) to sell hundreds of these boards, if not thousands.  There are so many possibilities for this project and where you take it in the future.