FPGA Replay Board

[Blinx123]

Hi Mike.

Just sent you a PM.

Those 060 daughterboards sound awesome.
Best of luck to you.

[Johan Samuelsson]

Yay! I finally got a reply! I am on the list!!!

[Blinx123]

I hope I'm not too late to the game.

What I've seen in the Minimig AGA video so far seems really awesome and this seems to be the most affordable way to buy into 060 hardware.

I think if I can get ahold of one and once I've towerized my Amiga 1200, I'll place one of these into the resulting empty Amiga 1200 desktop case.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Frankly speaking there is not much to show right now. Everything has been delayed slightly.
 
I should get the new revision of the board shortly after Mike has verified the design. The daughter board should be ready in January.
 
In the meantime Tobias has managed to implement missing bitfield instructions. It has increased the core size to 75% of the FPGA.
 
We are still working on fixing minor problems. Finally we've got the RNC Copy Lock games to work.

 
If you are part of the team for FPGAReplay is it possible...in the new version you can at least give the user the ability to use real storage media such as HD, Disk Drive, Optical Media, etc? Please, can you consider it in the future? Can you turn it into a desktop motherbord with  build in PCI, allow for video card too as well? Can you consider it? Thanks.

[Blinx123]

Just sent an email to support@fpgaarcade.com
I hope it's the right address.

I kind of really want one now.
With the lack of proper accelerators for classic Amigas, this would make the perfect developer system.

[freqmax]

PCI etc.. = more $$ and also more EMC issues.

Just a suggestion.. put a list in the order of first to get board online. Then less people need ask for the status

[mikej]

If you are part of the team for FPGAReplay is it possible...in the new version you can at least give the user the ability to use real storage media such as HD, Disk Drive, Optical Media, etc? Please, can you consider it in the future? Can you turn it into a desktop motherbord with  build in PCI, allow for video card too as well? Can you consider it? Thanks.

Hi.
I got an email with a similar question, but I will answer here as well.

Answer is no, the board is relatively cheap as it is small - it's as small as it can be and fit everything on. It fits on two normal ATX holes quite stably so it will go in an itx/atx etc case.

PCI does not help at all - it would have to be PCI express nowadays which is fairly complex to bridge. The idea is future daughter boards could add more advanced features.

SD cards give you significant storage and emulate hard drives as fast as the original Amiga drives pretty much in transfer rate. You can hook USB devices from the daughter board.

/MikeJ

[Blinx123]

Hey Mike.

Have you received my email? Is support@fpgaarcade.com the correct address?

[ChaosLord]

Hi.
PCI does not help at all - it would have to be PCI express nowadays which is fairly complex to bridge. The idea is future daughter boards could add more advanced features.

It would help because then the user could plug in a 256MB PCI gfx card with a highspeed blitter and highspeed local VRAM onboard.

As the gfx card is easily available for sale and has an OpenPCI driver (and also an Elbox driver) it is something everyone could make use of.

It would also allow 16-bit sound cards to be plugged in but I would rather that the FPGA team added a 16-bit paula to get 16-bit sound that way.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Hi.
I got an email with a similar question, but I will answer here as well.
 
Answer is no, the board is relatively cheap as it is small - it's as small as it can be and fit everything on. It fits on two normal ATX holes quite stably so it will go in an itx/atx etc case.
 
PCI does not help at all - it would have to be PCI express nowadays which is fairly complex to bridge. The idea is future daughter boards could add more advanced features.
 
SD cards give you significant storage and emulate hard drives as fast as the original Amiga drives pretty much in transfer rate. You can hook USB devices from the daughter board.
 
/MikeJ

 
Hey if you are saying that in the future there will be different daughterboards with different settings and upgrades and features and it is up to the user to which board or daughterboard they will buy, pretty much like a LEGO game THEN YOU HAVE ME AS A DEVOTED CUSTOMER all the way.
 
There is one request I would like ask. Can you make a new custom chipset from AGA similiar to what Commodore wanted with AAA? It does not have to be Nvidia quality, but at oleast allow for something like 256 MB of RAM chip RAM, FASTER SPEED AND BANDWIDTH than AGA and still support AGA/ECS/OCS for compatibility reasons, and it also support higher resolution AND IT CAN switch between PAL/NTSC and 31 Khz Monitor setting if the user wants too?
 
I mean if you manage to DO THAT you would have kicked Natami on the butt!! We do need more than 2 MB of CHIP RAM if possible and AGA is too weak to even run DOSBox or intensive media. :mad::rant:
 
Bring the Media back to Amiga is what I say!! :pint::banana::biglaugh:
 
Concerning USB devices, that is exactly what I will do. I will have a phsyical real USB HD and other USB media storage to run all my stuff. The SD cards will be used as a form of storage media and transfer between PC and it.  By the way, any advice of the most COOLEST casing for it that COMES AS CLOSE as possible as to Commodore style casing (unintentionally) that you think will fit well with FPGA Replay Board? Thanks

[Lord Aga]

I think I remember a video of FPGA Arcade doing some 50+ MB of Chip RAM.
It will probably be configurable.

[AmigaClassicRule]

I think I remember a video of FPGA Arcade doing some 50+ MB of Chip RAM.
It will probably be configurable.

I do not mind it if it is static and not configurable (either) and you have to buy newer motherboard models for a Chip RAM upgrade or better yet, it have a maximum limit say to 32 GB of chip RAM or even 8 GB and you use a normal RAM DDR or whatever as a Chip RAM. Either way it is cool, but software configurable seems to me emulated (* shiver *)

[matthey]

PCI does not help at all - it would have to be PCI express nowadays which is fairly complex to bridge. The idea is future daughter boards could add more advanced features.

Actually, I would prefer regular PCI . We have existing drivers, there are cheap PCI cards available for less than $10 and it's fast enough without a faster CPU. You get cheap gfx cards with 3D and more memory, SATA and SCSI cards, sound cards, etc. Can you really add features like USB, ethernet, SATA, memory as cheap as they can be added with a PCI bus? I bought a 100mbit ethernet card for $5 a couple of years ago. The only disadvantage is that it would take more space. I would like to have an expandable expansion board for a small tower and a small expansion board for a laptop. I understand the more advanced features later part though .

SD cards give you significant storage and emulate hard drives as fast as the original Amiga drives pretty much in transfer rate. You can hook USB devices from the daughter board.

My CSMK3 does 30MB/s sustained DMA HD transfers with very low CPU usage. My Voodoo 4 gfx card gives 3D, very fast 2D (compared to AGA) and extra main memory. The fpga Arcade will be slower and a step down in many ways from what I have. I will still buy one with the expansion board as it has some kool features but PCI opens up many interesting possibilities that you are neglecting to see.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Actually, I would prefer regular PCI . We have existing drivers, there are cheap PCI cards available for less than $10 and it's fast enough without a faster CPU. You get cheap gfx cards with 3D and more memory, SATA and SCSI cards, sound cards, etc. Can you really add features like USB, ethernet, SATA, memory as cheap as they can be added with a PCI bus? I bought a 100mbit ethernet card for $5 a couple of years ago. The only disadvantage is that it would take more space. I would like to have an expandable expansion board for a small tower and a small expansion board for a laptop. I understand the more advanced features later part though .
 
 
 
 
My CSMK3 does 30MB/s sustained DMA HD transfers with very low CPU usage. My Voodoo 4 gfx card gives 3D, very fast 2D (compared to AGA) and extra main memory. The fpga Arcade will be slower and a step down in many ways from what I have. I will still buy one with the expansion board as it has some kool features but PCI opens up many interesting possibilities that you are neglecting to see.

I also believe it is a step down because it still use AGA as the latest custom chipset. We need something AT LEAST like AAA for a starter as a default build in to the motherboard custom chipset, with PCI slots to allow users to upgrade to video cards if they should need better and more powerful graphics ability. Imagine the awesome new games and apps that take advantage of the hardware if we at least add these two features!!!

[wawrzon]

as much as i would like to see pci or pcie enabled upgrade to (68k) amigas id prefer the fpgaarcade (and the 060 daughterboard) to reach the consumer availability stage first asap, just before it turns into another vapor.

can we stop the feature creap demands for now, please?

[AmigaClassicRule]

as much as i would like to see pci or pcie enabled upgrade to (68k) amigas id prefer the fpgaarcade (and the 060 daughterboard) to reach the consumer availability stage first asap, just before it turns into another vapor.
 
can we stop the feature creap demands for now, please?

You are missing the point. We are not demanding them now. We are giving him list of cool features to consider for the future. Right now I would also want it to come with 060 daughterboard and fpgaarcade at this point.
 
However, in the future whatever that be in years, we are simply inputing what we like as a cool feature. It is not like we have a control over what he decides. Also you could have worded your feeling more....say....politically -_-