FPGA that upgrades Amiga 500 custom chipset or allow internet browsing...

[AmigaClassicRule]

What do you guys think of this idea as an FPGA project? You recall how in AmigaKit there is an MP3 Player hardware that hooks in the mouse of the Amiga port for Amiga systems that cannot play MP3? All you need is like some sort of extra RAM to buffer the MP3 and it does all the work for you?

 Why not invent a hardware that goes to the joystick port or parallel port or serial port or even the expansion port of the Amiga 500 where it does all the work for Javascript/flash/HTML 5/Silverlight etc and there is a firmware for updates...that simply you have a browser in the workbench that opens the page then all the other things that cannot allow a classical Amiga to browse the website correctly (with RTG or without) due to lack of flash, javascript,etc that hardware takes effect. It does all the grinding work..then it uses the Amiga machine to display the content of the website in the screen. When the person clicks on a youtube film...the hardware does all the grinding work and then sends the information and uses Paula and video to display it into your monitor and audio...if you are using OCS/ECS it uses HAM6 and if you are using AGA it uses HAM8 and if you are using RTG it optimizes for that...and in itself it have some sort of RAM and CPU that does the grinding work and firmware with the third party flash and so on?

Minimum requirement to use this hardware and browser is KS 2.x+ and minimum hardware would be 020 for example. This way all Amiga classic users starting from A500 up to A4000 would enjoy browsing the internet without any trouble.....any food for thought in this idea?

Also I have another idea of an FPGA project. Have an emulator FPGA card that hooks into your Amiga 500 that allows you to emulate Commodore 64/128 and other system emulation such as MSX, etc using your A500 and it fits in the trapdoor of your system. It also add additional RAM like 8 MB of RAM or something like that...when you place the card in your A500 it automatically display the icons on the desktop (minimum Kickstart 1.3) of these emulation and will require real life hardware media devices or real 1541 disk drive or tape drive etc. When you double click the icon it asks (in system request) if you wish to go into C64 mode or whatever...and poof like Commodore 128 switching to C64 mode...the Amiga classic switches to that system.

Finally I have another FPGA project, upgrading your A500/A600/A3000/A1200/A4000 with a newer custom chipset...not necessarly like Natami new system all together..but simply increases the CHIP RAM from 2 MB to 16 MB and increases from OCS/ECS/AGA to new custom chipset even SAGA. Thus allowing all Amiga platforms to be 100% compatible with each other as they all have the same custom chipset and the custom chipset is backward compatible to OCS/ECS and AGA in the startup screen. It allows to switching between NTSC/PAL and have build in scandoubler and support for HDMI as well.

[AmigaClassicRule]

There are various issues with your ideas inthe context of doing them as an FPGA. For the webbrowser accelerator, it sounds like you are suggesting a processor that executes human-readable code, as I do not think that HTML5, javascript etc. are "compiled" binary executables. And creating a parser in hardware rather than in software. My view of processors is that these things are better done in software. Perhaps what makes more sense is an FPGA accelerator, something like Majsta's project, or perhaps something like a Zync chip using the ARM cores to emulate 68K faster, or as a fast coprocessor like PPC started out on Phase5 boards.

I see the mouse/joystick ports as way way too slow to do these sorts of things. Go CPU slot/socket or go home. As others have suggested, you may end up duplicating the FPGAReplay as an accelerator card and only using the Amiga host as a power supply, keyboard and mouse...

Jens imagined FPGA replacements for ECS chipset as Clone-A concept, which lives on partially as his flickerfixer products. One could make such things do more than just the ECS chipset with flickerfixed output, add new screenmodes etc.

The emulator idea sounds interesting. There will be a lot of software to go with though.

Personally I will stick with my Amiga 500 the way it is...kickstart 1.3..OCS, etc. The only thing I really want in my Amiga 500 is the ability to go online and chat wookiechat on Amiga 500...that is pretty much the coolest thing I could do. I am also planning on getting the GVP HD and watch movies on my Amiga 500..and listen to MP3 on it. if I want AGA or RTG stuff I will use WinUAE.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Personally I will stick with my Amiga 500 the way it is...kickstart  1.3..OCS, etc. The only thing I really want in my Amiga 500 is the  ability to go online and chat wookiechat on Amiga 500...that is pretty  much the coolest thing I could do. I am also planning on getting the GVP  HD and watch movies on my Amiga 500..and listen to MP3 on it. if I want  AGA or RTG stuff I will use WinUAE.