FPGA Replay Board

[Iggy]

I do see your point, but with a totally non-standard bus we'd have to create the cards that use it ourselves.
That's why, after considering it, I opted to agree with the post on PCI expansion. The cards are available and the drivers already exist.

[kedawa]

I don't see what use a computer expansion bus would be for a device primarily made for reproducing arcade games.

[Iggy]

I don't see what use a computer expansion bus would be for a device primarily made for reproducing arcade games.

That may have been Mike's initial intention, but if your emulating an Amiga an expansion bus would be very useful.

[freqmax]

Kedawa, Some people might want to do other things than gaming..

Iggy, I think you miss the technical point. To preserve main FPGA I/O the bus is serialized much like how boundary scan works. Then an external CPLD or FPGA deserialize that to an old-style Zorro II/III bus connector(s).

FPGA-Arcade <-- LVDS serial etc.. --> FPGA <-> Zorro parallell connector

Makes it possible to use any standard already made Zorro device right of the shelf. And it can maybe be applied to the existing FPGA Replay.

The alternative:

FPGA <- Lots of wires -> Zorro connector

Works too but uses up loads of I/O and need lot's of PCB routing to work.

[kedawa]

I just don't want this thing to cost twice as much as it needs to just so half a dozen people can connect some specialized hardware.
The Natami project seems more suited to that type of expansion.

[freqmax]

kedawa, That's why just routing 1-4 I/O ports (out of ~200) to a plain socket will be dirt cheap. Any one wishing to connect an Zorro bus just plugs in an extra slave-FPGA that deserialize.

Adding plain ethernet to the current board would have added $3 for PHY chip and maybe the same amount for the magnetics and plug. The benefit is that you don't have to use sneakernet.

[Iggy]

OK, I'm definitely with you on the Ethernet PHY, but I'm still not convinced about the utility of Zorro bus expansion. I just can't think of any Zorro bus cards that I'd want to use.
Now PCI expansion cards, video, USB, wireless networking, etc.
Even with the added complication, I can see more use for this.

[kedawa]

Is there anything you can plug into a zorro slot that couldn't just be emulated by the FPGA directly?

[freqmax]

kedawa, Audio / Video digitizing, networking, most things that interact with the outside world.

Iggy, There is a possibility to (mis)use the existing "user I/O" pads for things like serialized pci/zorro bus or ethernet. The Spartan-3E can pump 333 Mbit/s per I/O asfair. Provided proper impedance matching, differential mode etc.. is used.

[kedawa]

Ah, okay.  So it's useful for stuff that can't be handled by the I/O ports on the FPGA itself.

[alexh]

I think you're all going a little bonkers. This is FPGAArcade. It is supposed to be a cheap, mass produced hardware emulation platform. Not a replacement PC. Surely if you want addon cards then get a PC/Mac?

Just because a new hardware platform came out the software devs are not going to come back to the Amiga platform. No software devs means no new drivers. No new drivers means no way of using new hardware.

FPGAArcade is surely destined to be a fun hardware emulation platform. Not meant as a replacement computer.

[jj]

That's probably a no then. I doubt you will be able to use the 68060.
 
But as there is no X68000 FPGA HDL code for the hardware. The point is a little mute.

 
Did you mean moot

[vidarh]

I think you're all going a little bonkers. This is FPGAArcade. It is supposed to be a cheap, mass produced hardware emulation platform. Not a replacement PC. Surely if you want addon cards then get a PC/Mac?

Just because a new hardware platform came out the software devs are not going to come back to the Amiga platform. No software devs means no new drivers. No new drivers means no way of using new hardware.

FPGAArcade is surely destined to be a fun hardware emulation platform. Not meant as a replacement computer.

With sufficient expandability it will make a suitable mid-level replacement for classic Amiga hardware for some people.

For my part it won't replace my Linux box, but I'm certainly not intending to relegate it to playing games.

As for drivers, with the 68k AROS port coming along, I can pretty much guarantee that at least a few AROS devs will pick up an FPGA Arcade. If there are any *interesting* cards that aren't too hard to write drivers for, I don't think drivers will be an issue. Given that Natami will have these options as well, there might also be some scope for shared efforts on the driver front.

[AmigaPixel]

I suppose it will be like a real AGA Amiga in that some OCS/ECS games will have to be patched to run properly, or that you'd have to set up ECS compatibility in the early startup menu. As a whdload user, I don't mind either way.

Yes that makes sense, I would prefer a menu selection but I would be happy with whdload  too.

[AmigaPixel]

I didn't realize there is a Magnavox Odyssey FPGA in the works too. I use to have one, very cool! I might even buy the FPGA Spartan 3 VGA starter kit. it would be fun for learning.

[freqmax]

mikej/yaqube, That USB port on the ARM. Is it possible to access it from the virtual Amiga in any constructive way?