FPGA Replay Board

[mikej]

We'll, i'm just back from Glastonbury. Amazing as always,

I'm still working through a backlog of emails, but I built an atx power controller board to test it and boxed up my Replay board so it is more mobile. You can see at :

http://www.fpgaarcade.com

No firm dates on production yet, still waiting for FPGAs.

/MikeJ

p.s. some good random festival pics can be found here :

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=136701&st=1360

[Retro_71]

I hope you get those FPGA soon i can't wait for my one (consumer version), but what about those 060 daugther boards how will they be produced and in what numbers?

[Firedawg]

If you are going to do something, might as well do it properly!
Volume is the only way to get the price.
Lets see how we go.

I totally agree with Mike on the volume approach to achieve an attractive price point to maximize interest.  As for risk I'm sure Mike has done his business due diligence to ascertain interest not only from his own website, but from the various other sites (i.e. A.org).  I believe partnering up with companies like Amigakit, Verslia, and others would be very smart to maximize the impact on the retro-computer scene, and to include the many arcade sites that would love to promote this great piece of kit.  So, is 500 pieces a bit too much, I would say that it is a modest start.

Mike count me on 1, so now there are only 499 left available!

The Dawg

[digiflip]

@mikej will you be emailing people on your list when you want payment. Ps how do I find out if im on the 44 list or the big 500?

[Methanoid]

@mikej will you be emailing people on your list when you want payment. Ps how do I find out if im on the 44 list or the big 500?

I asked this on forum and in email and never got any answer so I would not expect you to get one

I'm just assuming I am since I asked aeons ago but a published list would ease worries!

[digiflip]

maybe he will do this on his main site or confirm soon if a reseller is going to stock his fpga replay

[DyLucke]

Hi there, i've just run into this thread, and i'm really amazed about what this project could perform, but, could some of you please provide some info about what are the real specs of this system, what cores are available and how do they perform? How much would this board cost?

I've seen some info that it could emulate a 020 around 50mhz or so with RTG without the need of the daughter board, but i don't have any idea about other cores/systems.

Cheers.

[AJCopland]

Hi there, i've just run into this thread, and i'm really amazed about what this project could perform, but, could some of you please provide some info about what are the real specs of this system, what cores are available and how do they perform? How much would this board cost?

I've seen some info that it could emulate a 020 around 50mhz or so with RTG without the need of the daughter board, but i don't have any idea about other cores/systems.

Cheers.

It seems as though there's a core based on the TG68k.C with added instructions from the '020 and also AGA compatibility. Now also with an Picasso 96 RTG chipset as seen in this thread:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=58425
Yaqube has also made a daughterboard that adds a '060 and seems to be really pushing a lot of features onto these things

I think MikeJ has mentioned that he's got other platforms running on it as well, after all it's not just an Amiga system. I guess this means that other FPGA based platforms could soon be ported across too it such as fpgagen (megadrive) : http://code.google.com/p/fpgagen/
Should people be interested in doing that.

Andy

[espskog]

Here is a good idea (IMHO):

1. Make Minimig being able to autoboot an ADF file (e.g. autoboot.adf) from root at sdcard -- if the file is there. If not, it continues as usual to the WB-Hand screen.
2. Then this ADF boots a menuloader using the startup-sequence of the adf "diskette"
3. That menuloader can be quite nice and show all games and demos on the sdcard and
    maybe also show with thumbnails and have lots of nice info on the game like
    screenshot. PLus maybe some nice screenshots of the game + gameinfo. And the
    trick is then to be able to select the game you want, and have the minimig boot it

Would be nice to have kind of like a MediaCenter type of presentation of the games on the card --- more "LivingRoom" friendly

Espen

[freqmax]

How does the Amiga side know or even change to other ADF:s or HDF:s ..?

There's no "change disk automaticly" API in Amiga..

Though autoboot.adf or autoboot.hdf is a good idea.

[espskog]

How about it just renames the selected adf file to "autoboot.adf" and restarts the replay

[freqmax]

Thinking about this for a while.. this renaming business maybe isn't such a good idea. it might be better with a configuration file that points to the .adf or .hdf file to boot.

If the filesystem were a unix one, a quick filelink would solved it

[espskog]

Oh, the world would be a better place if everything was running on unix In my mind, there is no doubt -- however, I know there are split feelings on that matter. Hehe, but let's not fire up a OS-War kind of discussion (Although I miss the old days when we used to fight PC vs. Amiga OS wars on the BBS's ---- man, good days....good days)

Anyway, what you say about having an entry in minimig config which points to a ADF file and boots that first (if a autoboot=true) flag is set -- I support you on this.

But how are we going to access the minimig config file from the amiga os when that file resides on the root of the sd card ?

Espen

[freqmax]

Oh, the world would be a better place if everything was running on unix

On the practical side implementing a unix-fs might be tough for a microcontroller..

But how are we going to access the minimig config file from the amiga os when that file resides on the root of the sd card ?

The same way you switch discs right now?

Otherwise a simple block interface to the raw SD-card from the Amiga side could make workable.

[espskog]

So what we need is:

1. Someone to program an interface for Amiga OS -- preferably one with Joystick selector or Mouse support so that it is easily navigateable (!).

2. Bundle it on a ADF + a startup-sequence so it autoboots

3. Beta testers...well, aren't we all that

Alternative A
I think that it would be cool if ADF format also had a small section inside itself (e.g. 64kb) to hold: Info on the adf-contents, a screenshot, +++
This info could then be shown in the selector.

OR


Alternative B:
Put a .adx file in parallell with the .adf file where x stands for "eXtra" so that if the adf file has such a daughterfile, the amiga selector uses this for displaying extra info on the adf file -- and he .adx file can hold e.g. a jpeg + text etc...

OR: One could just hardcode the selector with gameinfo, but that would not be cool as you could have to compile the selector every time you change the SD CARD contents...

[freqmax]

Alternative A
I think that it would be cool if ADF format also had a small section inside itself (e.g. 64kb) to hold: Info on the adf-contents, a screenshot, +++
This info could then be shown in the selector.

OR

Like the IFF chunks?

Alternative B:
Put a .adx file in parallell with the .adf file where x stands for "eXtra" so that if the adf file has such a daughterfile, the amiga selector uses this for displaying extra info on the adf file -- and he .adx file can hold e.g. a jpeg + text etc...

Those infofiles tends to get lost..