FPGA Replay Board

[espskog]

@ALL: Thanks for all the discussions on the topics i raised. Nice to see so many others are eager to see the Replay board "on the shelves" sometime very soon

Personally, I will go for the Replay board as I believe it is the coolest of them all. I will of course add the daughterboard and I do hope thet  RTG will be supported in the future so I can use the Replay board also as my "dekstop amiga" :-)

Thumbs up for MikeJ and Yaqube and also to the original minimig-author who started this whole crazyness

[espskog]

Bump....

Anyone have something to post ? Any news on progress ?

How abour the daughterboard. We're dying to hear how it goes
Maybe some specs ?

Espen

[espskog]

"Does the hardware provide direct access to the digital audio within the audio logic?
Real Amigas have integrated DACs, so there's no way to get digital audio output, but it should be possible to bypass the DACs in FPGA implementations of the platform.

Having digital audio to go along with the digital video signal would be really nice. "

Yes if required. The FPGA can output the signals which would go the DAC as spdif coded, so you just need to buffer an IO pin. I was thinking of adding a connector for this on the daughter board.
MikeJ

How is the daughterboard coming along ? Would be cool to see some specs for its current revision. Just so we have something to fuel our excitement yet another notch on the drool-scale :-D

//Espen

[espskog]

Even though this board is MiniITX, it would be cool that someone could custom made a plastic casing that is perfectly made for the replay board + additional holes for the daughterboard connectors. That way we'd have a very small footprint.

Like the cool ones made for the MiniMig boards. With such a small box, it could easily be glued/taped to the back of a sexy looking LCD, making it a killer setup if you add a wireless keyboard and mouse like the ones from Apple etc.

//Espen

[espskog]

If mikej posts dimensional specifications with a no guarantee disclaimer, it could be done.

There could be a market for a board that joins S/P-dif and DVI into an integrated HDMI signal

This might be a job for the daughterboard then :-)
OR a daughterboard on the daughterboard....a grand-daughterboard :laughing:

[espskog]

Problem is that HDMI lawyer monsters will attack you..

So such board can't be sold.. but it can be etched

So, how about "giving" it away -- or just "accidentally" having the HDMI attached without the connector ? =)

[espskog]

I have two adapters which enables you to connect PSX controllers to any amiga/c64. Which again means, wireless adapters should also work. Which then leads to the ability to have wireless joypads on the minimig/replayboard and in combination with a wireless kb+mouse you are all set for a very nifty gamingmachine :-)

//Espen

[espskog]

Just a small update: I've been able to get the 060 to run with a special monitor software. The next step is to design a dynamic bus sizing module to interface the CPU to the internal 16-bit bus of the Minimig core.

Nice work!! Is that the 060 from the Axx card I sent ? Is Q4 an approximate release-date ?

Espen

[espskog]

Let's see if the base board actually becomes available first

I believe it will be. Patience my friend :-)
(and patient we are...Commodore taught us that..hehe)

//Espen

[espskog]

Thank you much for the link, Amigadave.

Stoked on getting one of these to run the BBS.

DUDE...me too. I will certainly power my BBS with this as it is now running on a eUAE session on a ubuntu server. It works nice, but feels wrong :-)
It's like when you eat the last cookie from the jar. It's delicous, but you know you will pay later..:roflmao:

Our BBS has been running for 19 year now. So we're approaching the 20th anniversary, and what better way to celebreate it than to move it back to a more anti-intel platform like the replay board. Hehe

//Espen

[espskog]

Yuummyyy.....my Replay board is payd for and soon in the mail waiting to be tested. Can't wait to get my hands on this board. It's gonna be supercool!!!

[espskog]

Got my BBS backup from 1993 waiting here ;-)

I wonder if the replay board will run even for 24/7 without having any issues.

[espskog]

Can't think why not.  I left my Minimig v1.1 running for over 32 days once when I forgot to switch it off before heading to Brazil.

My default paranoia for old classic HW being a hazard when running unattended has gotten to me That's all..hehe.:hammer:

[espskog]

A question for Mike if he happens to drop in:

Are there any plans to include a "boot loader" similar to the C-One where you can select at startup which core you want to run?

I second that... it would make the board a super platform for easy core selection, and thus opening it up to a whole world of people apart from the amiga users

[espskog]

I am pretty sure, as the name implies, that MikeJ intends it to run more than just an Amiga core and has planned to have the Replay board run as many Arcade machine cores as are available.  I don't know about such cores, but searching for them on the Internet should turn up more than a few, I would think.

I don't know if you would need a separate SD card for each Arcade machine, or computer system that you are cloning, or if you can fit several onto just one SD card and as you said, choose which one you want to load from a boot loader.

I aggree. A core-selector from the boot menu would make the board very nice But I suspect this is already in the pipeline, or already implemented.

Espen

[espskog]

I got mine yesterday (first batch). Not being sure if what I payd is what batch#2-boards will sell for, I won't be able to comment on that price. I believe that Mike has written some messages on this thread a while ago what he'll charge for the boards.