FPGA Replay Board

[cunnpole]

A lot of us would be more than happy with just the base board. I'll probably want the expansion board when it's ready (not currently fussed about the 060, just the extra ports), but i'd be happier to wait if it meant i got the base board sooner.

It would be shame to see the base board held up further due to focus on the addons. Is there a technical reason why the button hasn't been pushed on mass production yet? Is there a fear that the addon board may require physical updates to the base board?

Sorry if this comes across as impatience, I'm just excited about getting my grubby mitts on one.

If the holdup is now a distribution problem I guess I'm not the only one that would be ok to buy through the path of least resistance (good faith gentleman's agreement with blatant disregard for consumer protection red tape).

[cunnpole]

I'm loving the idea of a stonkingly fast 020 softcore (further down the road at least).

I guess it'd make upgrades easier when new fpgas become available?

Would it be technically possible for this approach to provide more fast ram too (not that I need it)?

[cunnpole]

If we didn't get a reply does that mean we aren't on the list? I sent my mail on 15/05/2011. I guess you must get a LOT of mail

[cunnpole]

Is it possible to buy the FPGA Arcade and buy the '060 board bare so that I can put my own '060 on it?.

I believe the expansion board is going to be offered with the cpu as an optional extra (until mikes 060 stocks run out). You don't even need a cpu in the slot to make use of the other features of the expansion board (extra memory, 2nd SDcard card, network etc).

[cunnpole]

I hear she might have some sisters. I'll be happy to take the ugly one

[cunnpole]

I want one with at least 256 MB

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think we can use the 64MB~  on the base board as well as the 128MB on the expansion, giving us a total of 192MB~.

Where can one buy a complete system built around an FPGA Replay board now? Thanks.

Just a few pages back

http://faranheit.dyndns.org:8080/FPGA%20Arcade/FPGA%20Arcade%20Boards%20and%20Accessories%20Prices%20List.pdf

[cunnpole]

Will using the expansion board without the 060 give any performance boost over the vanilla Replay? Or would I be best to get my hands on the cheapest RC model I can find?

[cunnpole]

What kind of cases and power supplies are you guys getting?

Glue gun to the back of my TV, with a suitable pico-itx psu from http://www.mini-itx.com/store/ or similar.

[cunnpole]

Mike will a 90W PSU do for both the base and addon board (either the with 060 or the proposed secondary fpga)

Tempted to go for one of these to keep the dust out: http://www.ebuyer.com/312925-isk-110-vesa-uk-itx-chassis-uk-0-761345-08198-6

[cunnpole]

There's more info here: http://www.fpgaarcade.com/dev/drupal/?q=node/5 and several hundred pages back

[cunnpole]

Would that be acceptable for use in a Replay?  Yes/no/maybe/depends?

It's only a class 4 card which only guarantees a minimum or 4MB/s. 28MB/s has been quoted for max transfer rate. Highly unlikely you'd hit that but I'd go for a class 10 to make the most of it. Cheap cards tend to be a waste of money. I'd rather get a smaller card of higher quality.

[cunnpole]

Class 10 asserts that the card supports 10 MB/s as a minimum non-fragmented sequential write speed.

Thanks I hadn't noticed the dodgy rating fudge for class 10. It seems to be quite difficult to find random read/write benchmarks for sd cards. The best I've seen is for high end digital cameras with little detail on the testing methodology (was the card new or had it already been used, etc.):
Writes:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-10549
Reads:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_all.asp?cid=6007-9438&card_type=SD

It does give you a general idea of contiguous allocation/read speeds and the overheads of each reader device.

[cunnpole]

So you can't even assume that because someone finds and reviews a card as being good that you'll have the same experience.

Joy...

It's mostly SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s SDHC cards that I'm buying at the moment. I can't say I've had a bad one yet. I guess we'll just have to suck it and see.  Mike which cards do you use?

[cunnpole]

Should build em Friday....

Coool, Did they ever make that production video or did someone eat it?

[cunnpole]

Are you able to give us an idea of the cost of a '2nd best' 060? I see a few go on ebay from time to time for £50-60 (excluding the insanely priced ones) but not sure how this compares to the oriental prices.