FPGA Replay Board

[psxphill]

You can always wire up a connector onto the spare IO pads if you are handy with a soldering iron. I maybe able to fit a header as an option during ordering.
Will look into this.

Or maybe we need an A4000 to USB keyboard interface.

[psxphill]

Read you PM and you'll have the answer

I'm interested too, I did send a mail or pm to mikej a while back but I don't know if I got on the list.

[psxphill]

It boggles my mind that an awesome hand built all in one solution like this is cheaper in materials and labor than a zorro 3 ethernet card or AGA scandoubler...

It's not going to be cheaper than those
 
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1085
 
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=250
 
You're lucky that mikej was able to afford the time and money to do this. But I expect he'll want to recover that when he starts selling them.

[psxphill]

I will not recover the time or NRE costs - if I was to factor in my time as I would when I am consulting or doing my day job (ASIC/FPGA design), then there would be no way this would even cover costs, never mind any return on investment.

Yeah I wasn't expecting you to recover your time at your normal rates, it would make this product unaffordable :-) But I would have thought you wouldn't want to make a monetary loss on the whole thing. If you don't mind then please send me my free replay board
 
Jens on the other hand doesn't make a product unless it puts food on the table, which I think is fair.

[psxphill]

@mikej, Is there coding space in the ARM and time slices left over to make use of its built in A/D ..?
(I guess it might be hard to save to SD-card if it's too busy sampling, otoh there's RAM)

Ideally it would be able to emulate a parallel port sampler and one of the zorro based cards so we could use existing software.

[psxphill]

Wut ?

Last may mikej had the cost as
 
"The price for the current boards is 199Euro + VAT for the non-composite/svhs version and 229Euro +VAT with. VAT in Sweden is 25%"
 
So that is 286.25 euros including the VAT, which is around 370 dollars. I guess you wouldn't pay the VAT if you're outside the EU, but you're going to be paying higher shipping and import duty etc.
 
I haven't noticed a higher price for the boards but that wouldn't surprise me. No idea what the cost of the case and power supply is, but I thought they used a standard one anyway.

[psxphill]

If you want an assembled, tested system I suggest you go with the reseller.

And of course that is the gamble.
 
Changing the topic, does anyone know how effective the fpga replay could be at bitcoin hashing (http://bitcoinfpga.com/)

[psxphill]

So expect no more than 43 MH/s on FPGA Arcade. Perhaps someone can translate that into USD/s ..?

I'm not sure I did the calculation right, but putting the numbers into http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/ with free electricity comes out at 0.22 USD a day.
 
It looks like it would be slaughtered by the other FPGA's or GPU's.
 
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#cite_note-21
 

I did some calculus using the defaults on Difficulty and Bitcoins per block and it would take 4.9 years to break even economicly for the FPGA Arcade
 
Perhaps it's better to make other use of the FPGA Arcade..

Actually as long as it makes more money than the cost of the electricity and you're not currently using it as an amiga etc then it is a reasonable use, although with the difficulty rise when the ASIC's hit the network it'll probably not even do that for long.

[psxphill]

With a FPGA Arcade cost of 283 USD and a profit of 0.22 USD/day it would take 3.5 years to break even. It would be more profitable to put the money in state bonds

That isn't relevant though as I will be buying it anyway.

[psxphill]

then we will buy the FPGA Replay and you can discontinue the MiniMag as this is better than the MiniMag...

That sentence is full of all kinds of wrong.
 
I'm sure the MiniMig will continue to be sold after the FPGA Replay is released. It's much cheaper and smaller.
 
I don't believe that the hold up is the daughterboard anyway.

[psxphill]

Daughterboard is nice for extras lik a CPU but for Ethernet I would prefer it to be on the main board ie KISS.
 
Seems I misstok the P13 micro USB conncector for the PS/2 connector in USB mode. But if the FPGA has the electrical control of the PS/2 port + adapter to USB. Extended device support is only .bit file away

You'll almost certainly have to write the code for this too (assuming that it can actually be flashed in place)
 
http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/VNC2.htm

[psxphill]

I have written all the code for the mouse/keyboard bridge already.
The VNC2 can be updated from a USB stick, and I need to add this before release.
Otherwise, you need to use the programmer - there is a connector on the module.
 
http://apple.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/ftdichip?op=catalogue-products-null&prodCategoryID=118&title=VNC2-Debug-module
/MikeJ

I meant to enable the VNC2 to allow USB Ethernet. If the only way to update it without a programmer is to have it update itself and it needs to work for that, then there is no way I'll be messing with mine.
 
But it does sound at least doable. It's likely to be pig slow though.

[psxphill]

I know it was a mere suggestion on which one that has the most CPU power.
 
Btw, how much code size and MIPS does it require to use a USB device like a Ethernet dongle? (estimate), perhaps this estimate at 300 kB of RAM is realistic? in addition to the on board 4 MB flash.

The VNC2 has to at least be involved, because it's the only chip that has a USB host port on the board. It then uses SPI to get the data elsewhere. I imagine putting in something that allowed more than keyboards and mice to work (ideally making it subway compatible) is doable but it'll be a lot of work.

[psxphill]

You need an external pull-up still, and it would not be standards compliant. The VHDL to run the USB would take about 5% of the FPGA, but you would still need an on-board micro to run the USB stack for ps/2 mouse and keyboard.

Are hubs and usb game pads also supported?

[psxphill]

Correct - although hubs are supported in the current code.

Would usb hid gamepads be possible to add? While 9 pin joystick ports are fine for amiga use, it's a bit limiting for other platforms. I actually can't stand old joysticks now though. ps3 controller ftw.

[psxphill]

PS3 controller outputs continous signal? ordinary Commodore joystick only generate Back - Forward etc.. plain binary.

ps3 pads have a d-pad as well as analogue sticks.
 
The last I heard the FPGA replay board wasn't just for emulating commodore machines either.