Hi Yaqube,
Well done with your improvements. Ditching the PIC and using an ARM opens up lots of possibilities!
My additional wishes would be:
1. SDHC support
2. More RAM
3. Ethernet (10 Mbit)
4. Use an XC3S500E
SDHC support is supposedly a software-only mod when using the ARM controller. I would wish for folder support as well...
More RAM can be added through static RAMs and an extra address line, or by rewriting the interface to support SDRAM. The latter would result in a massive price reduction. Tobiflex is using SDRAM, so his design could be a point of reference for implementation.
I think that for experimenting, it should be possible to piggy back a couple of extra static RAM chips on the current PCB design and routing the extra address lines to the spare IO connector.
Ethernet would be a nice idea, especially if using a cheap and easy ENC28J60 interfaced through SPI - either directly to the FPGA as an Amiga peripheral with DMA capability, or through the ARM as some kind of virtual serial port.
As for using the XC3S500E, it would mean an extra 20% in logic capacity at a slightly lower price, while still allowing for home assembly.
On very small priority as wishes come, I was thinking about what Belial6 suggested. I would do it slightly differently as I can't see his point exactly but his concept is good food for thought!
What about moving slow I/O ports such as keyboard, mouse, joysticks, serial and parallel port to the ARM? There are surely several unused I/O pins on the ARM. The reclaimed FPGA pins could be put to good use for more demanding peripherals (such as 24-bit video, IDE, HDMI or anything that would come to mind).
Just my 2cents, and my compliments for the great work ;-)
Edwin
