TG68 - The Open Source Minimig CPU into the FPGA

[arnljot]

Where can I donate? Dennis page doesn't have a paypal button and neither does the T68 page.

I'm sure you get your motivation from your love of the amiga, the technical challenge, satisfaction of mastering the bits'n'bytes and soldering, and our appreciation.

But I notice that you need FPGA boards, can we help? If 10 people gave $20 you'd both have those developer boards.

Give us a paypal button, and the ones who only can help out with some $$ will!

BTW, my wishlist for minimig features is a mile long. But most of all, I want someone to get it made in china - soon!

[tonyyeb]

I would be willing to donate to help with development of the Minimig.

[xeron]

@billt

"USB-Blaster" is altera's USB -> JTAG debugging device. I have two right next to me now.

[sweetlilmre]

tonyyeb wrote:
I would be willing to donate to help with development of the Minimig.

An amazing cool and generous friend of mine has built and shipped me a MiniMig 1.1 for FREE! :-o

In light of this I would be willing to donate the full $150 for the dev. board to Dennis.

-(e)

[Crumb]

@BillT

2) Sounds like there's only 1 PS/2 port for EITHER keyboard OR mouse, not both

That's not a problem since you can use a splitter. My laptop just has one PS2 port but I can use simultaneously both keyboard&mouse.

edit: I mean external PS2 keyboard&mouse simultaneously, each one connected to the PS2 splitter, of course. AFAIK the splitter is just a cable without logic

[billt]

That's not a problem since you can use a splitter. My laptop just has one PS2 port but I can use simultaneously both keyboard&mouse.

I didn't know PS/2 ports could do that. Cool.

[downix]

billt wrote:

That's not a problem since you can use a splitter. My laptop just has one PS2 port but I can use simultaneously both keyboard&mouse.

I didn't know PS/2 ports could do that. Cool.

There are other cool things you can do with PS2's.  I have a PS/2 all-in-one keyboard that has a touchpad mouse incorporated with it (those who saw me at AmiWest a few years back saw me with it).  All runs down a single PS/2 line into the system.

[Hans_]

This is great progress. That's one less IC that needs to be soldered in.

Hans

[alexh]

Hans_ wrote:
This is great progress. That's one less IC that needs to be soldered in.

Hardly, you need to reread Dennis's post I think the results show that the TG68 takes up about 70% of the MiniMig v1.x FPGA, leaving no room for MiniMig :-(

I am sure TobiFlex could get the size of the TG68 down abit with some good constraints and if he made some of the instructions multi-cycle.

[bloodline]

But FPGAs are only going to get bigger! It won't be long before both prpjects can be combined :-)

[Colin_Camper]

Hardly, you need to reread Dennis's post I think the results show that the TG68 takes up about 70% of the MiniMig v1.x FPGA, leaving no room for MiniMig

I don't think this is an issue.
Anyone building a Minimig v1.1 will be using a physical 68000 anyway. In fact I think there will be always a demand for the 68000 based minimig going from v1.1 on. I own a v1.1 and I also intend to build an altera version.

More to the point, it would be good to take all the necessary elements from the DE2 and the additional requirements (I/O, video etc) and come up with a schematic/PCB layout for a dedicated Altera minimig board. Minimig v1.0a ? With no 68000 required and cheap memory this could be an interesting platform.  :-)

[Zac67]

Crumb wrote:

That's not a problem since you can use a splitter. My laptop just has one PS2 port but I can use simultaneously both keyboard&mouse.

Only PS/2 ports designed to do exactly that are compatible with splitter cables, mostly on laptops: Wikipedia:PS/2

[Hans_]

alexh wrote:

Hans_ wrote:
This is great progress. That's one less IC that needs to be soldered in.

Hardly, you need to reread Dennis's post I think the results show that the TG68 takes up about 70% of the MiniMig v1.x FPGA, leaving no room for MiniMig :-(

I am sure TobiFlex could get the size of the TG68 down abit with some good constraints and if he made some of the instructions multi-cycle.

And you need to buy a bigger FPGA and design a new board. ;-)

Hans

[JimS]

Hans_ wrote:
And you need to buy a bigger FPGA and design a new board. ;-)
Hans

I thought the big advantage of this effort is that you don't have to build [color=ff0000]any[/color] board, you can use a stock Altera or Xilinx dev board. Granted, more stuff needs to be done to the Xilinx board - more bits to the RGB, and an SD card interface. But it still seems to make more financial sense than a custom board, unless you have the skills & tools to do it yourself.

BTW, Futurlec has a miniboard with a SD card reader interfaced by SPI.

-Jim
 

[amigadave]

freqmax wrote:
@Belial6:
Or you could use: http://www.xess.com/prod035.php3

Which have 2,5 times logic array of XC3S400. Should be enough for Minimig + MC68000. Builtin PS/2 port, VGA, RAM.
MMC interface, Sound etc.. can be added with some very simple circuit to the prototyping header.

That looks like a very cool prototyping board and components.  Is it really true that it has insufficient lines going to the VGA port for Amiga graphics or did I skim this thread too quickly and misunderstand the comments?

[ChaosLord]

@TobiFlex

Is your fpga 680x0 using a barrel shifter for shifts and rotates?