FPGA Replay Board

[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:

[xyzzy]

Having a physical 060 connected leaves more space in the FPGA for interesting things

[Louis Dias]

Having a physical 060 connected leaves more space in the FPGA for interesting things

The 060 will never get any faster, but in time as the fpga(s) get bigger(not physically) and faster that hard cpu will be an anchor.

Even MikeJ as postulated that in another maybe 2 years an even faster version of his board will exist because of this.

This is quite good.  We are no longer limited to ancient 80's and 90's hardware.

[Louis Dias]

Well that would be good for the production run as the more units produced in a batch = lower cost per unit.

This is a handy feature of the FPGA as Mike will not be selling them just to the Amiga community, it will also make a great board for people developing other cores.

Well the Firebee is based on a 266Mhz Coldfire cpu.  So an '060 based system feels like going backwards for them since they'd still be limited to ~100Mhz.  They also want a roadmap forward and not just replacing failing classic hardware with modestly improved new hardware.

[Darrin]

Well the Firebee is based on a 266Mhz Coldfire cpu.  So an '060 based system feels like going backwards for them since they'd still be limited to ~100Mhz.  They also want a roadmap forward and not just replacing failing classic hardware with modestly improved new hardware.

The advantage is that they can make their own daughterboard and just use the main FPGA Arcade as the "base board".  It is the same for any design using the FPGA Arcade, they can make their own daughtboards to supply any specific features they wish to add (and put a Coldfire on their own board).

Meanwhile, this would boost sales of the base FPGA Arcade beyond what Amiga-only users would generate and reduce unit costs.

[Mathias]

Hi,I am the one who is coordinating the Atari Coldfire Project (reloaded) for more than 2 years now.

On the Natami forums, the Atari Firebee team are keen on using Natami as a future Atari platform as well.  They aren't completely happy with the Firebee hardware in the long run...it seems.

That was not what I said. There are some users who are not 100% happy about the choosen Coldfire. This dicussion "PPC or ColdFire or emulation or something else" is as old in Atari scene, as Motorola abandoned the further development of the 060. ;)So what I meant at Natami, is that some Atari users think the way of the self made 070 is interresting. And maybe there will be a future for some cooperation (like viceversa some Amiga users contacted us and asked for Amiga possibilities at the FireBee, what also could be done, but not by us). But of course noone inside the Atari Coldfire team thought about simply using a Natami as Atari. And remember Atari scene is in the glad situation, to have the Suska board as well - deliverable for nearly 2 years now.

But that could just be a vocal minority.  The time for competition is at an end.  Co-operation is the future, imho.

Yes, exactly. And if there is any chance for cooperation, we try to do so. But we are in a better situation as we have the sources of TOS (Atari TOS & EmuTOS) and MiNT, what makes it possible at all to use a coldfire processor.

[Mathias]

Well the Firebee is based on a 266Mhz Coldfire cpu.  So an '060 based system feels like going backwards for them since they'd still be limited to ~100Mhz.  They also want a roadmap forward and not just replacing failing classic hardware with modestly improved new hardware.

You are right. And as we as community would not be able to do such a big switch to PPC, we try to make Atari applications usable at ColdFire CPUs. We have that AHCC compiler that can do binaries that are working on 68020 up to including Coldfire processors. So the plan is to have a new hardware and new applications that will work on the existing "high end" Ataris like CT6x or Hades/Milan as well as at the FireBee.

[Darrin]

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?

[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

[Derfs]

who would make these cores? and could they do that with a replay board or do they need a full dev kit?

[Darrin]

who would make these cores? and could they do that with a replay board or do they need a full dev kit?

I believe some are already in the works.  There's an old thread around here somewhere...

Once I get my hands on the FPGA Arcade I intend to put together a hard file with a Classic Workbench install and then add as many emulators to that as I can find.  Some off the top of my head:

VICE:  8bit Coomodores (C64, VIC20, PET, etc)
MAME:  Arcade classics!
BBC model B:  I have the floppy somewhere, hope it works.
Spectrum:  For those who want to play C64 games only with wank graphics and crap sound.  
PC Task:  MS DOS and Windows 3.x or even Windows 95?
Shape Shifter:  I also have the MacOS7.x package that Cammy & friend assembled.

It will do until some "native" cores appear.  Can anyone think of any more?

[Derfs]

I believe some are already in the works.  There's an old thread around here somewhere...

Once I get my hands on the FPGA Arcade I intend to put together a hard file with a Classic Workbench install and then add as many emulators to that as I can find.  Some off the top of my head:

VICE:  8bit Coomodores (C64, VIC20, PET, etc)
MAME:  Arcade classics!
BBC model B:  I have the floppy somewhere, hope it works.
Spectrum:  For those who want to play C64 games only with wank graphics and crap sound.  
PC Task:  MS DOS and Windows 3.x or even Windows 95?
Shape Shifter:  I also have the MacOS7.x package that Cammy & friend assembled.

It will do until some "native" cores appear.  Can anyone think of any more?

good idea, i would like it more as a gaming device, so 8/16-bit consoles as well as Amiga, C64, arcade etc

that would only be feasable with supported cores for the replay board though

[JimS]

who would make these cores? and could they do that with a replay board or do they need a full dev kit?

You'd need a PC with the Xilinx development software installed. It's a free DL, but huge - about 4GB. I tried to download it at the library last week, but their security blocked the download manager Xilinx wanted to send first.

[Louis Dias]

But we are in a better situation as we have the sources of TOS (Atari TOS & EmuTOS) and MiNT, what makes it possible at all to use a coldfire processor.

Neat!  How did you get the sources?

[freqmax]

Source for the A-Replay isn't released.

mikej/yaqube, How much power [W] does the Action Replay board use at average and peak? (and the 060-board?)

[amigadave]

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 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.