FPGA Replay Board

[ChaosLord]

If I use an Atari 800 core there is only 1 game I would want to play on it.  That is M.U.L.E. with all 4 joystick ports at a M.U.L.E. party.  The C64 version has much better music but 2 of the players must use the keyboard during the auctions.  Letting everyone have their own joystick on the Atari 800 is much kewler.


We would plug in all 4 joysticks into the Replay... woops... there are only 2 joystick ports....  Ok so obviously the Atari 800 core, being highly professional and containing all needed features, would look to the daughterboard for the other 2 joystick ports.

My Elite 68060 daughterboard should supply joystick ports 3 and 4 because a bunch of Amiga games use them... but it does not... so the Atari Core just starts sending out a bunch of signals that make no sense to my 68060 daughterboard and everything would then go berzerk.    This is what I am trying to avoid.

[Kokos]

I thought there is a possibility to connect 2 joysticks to one port..

[ChaosLord]

How many ppl have Replays already?  Isn't it like 30 ppl?  Where are all these ppl?  Do they have some secret meeting place where they hang out and laff at all us oldsk00l A1200 lamers?  :lol:

The reason I ask is because if I am going to drop $1436.00 on a fully loaded Retro Replay Business Computer then I should probably make sure my game actually works on the Replay first.    Free download from Aminet here if anyone out there has a Replay and they want to check if it works:
http://aminet.net/package/game/strat/TotalChaosAGAr6

It really should work.  It is fully AmigaOS compliant and has been tested on a wide range of systems.  The only thing I am worried about is maybe if the Paula core has a tiny flaw in it then the music playback could go berzerk.  Mostly Octamed Sound Studio .meds and some good old protracker mods but modified to use a 1 line DMA-wait.

I don't use any weird instructions like movep.  I don't use weirdo lame addressing modes.  I don't even use bitfield instructions.  But I suppose maybe SASC might generate those in weird situations?  I doubt it but who knows?  I don't use any atomic Read-Modify-Write instructions.  So I am figuring it should work on the softcore cpu.  On the other hand, it is over 200,000 lines of code so...

There is a bug in the game so that soundfx playback can fail on SFS partitions.  Use FFS, PFS3 or ask me for the patch that fixes the problem.

Any place I could go to ask a Replay playtester to give it a quick test?

If there are any bugs, well... I have the source code to the whole game and a super powerful professional Source Level Debugger which displays both C and Asm sources simultaneously so I might be able to zoom right in on the problem and file a competent bug report.

[Darrin]

I'd be happy to test it for you, but I'm away from home for the next 4 weeks.  Remind me next month and I'll try it for you if nobody else has managed it.

[mikej]

If there are any compatibility problems, I will do my best to fix them.
When the new core is out there will probably be a whole load of initial issues, so we go into bug-squashing mode. I have a board with external 68K I can run to see if it's a problem with the CPU (I can actually run both CPUs and diff them in real time).

I can also probe and capture any internal state with the JTAG FPGA debugger, so as long as we can get a trigger condition, and can reproduce the fault, it's normally fairly easy to fix problems.
/MikeJ

[Darrin]

If there are any compatibility problems, I will do my best to fix them.
When the new core is out there will probably be a whole load of initial issues, so we go into bug-squashing mode. I have a board with external 68K I can run to see if it's a problem with the CPU (I can actually run both CPUs and diff them in real time).

I can also probe and capture any internal state with the JTAG FPGA debugger, so as long as we can get a trigger condition, and can reproduce the fault, it's normally fairly easy to fix problems.
/MikeJ

And I'm ready to start testing when you are...

[ChaosLord]

I have a board with external 68K I can run to see if it's a problem with the CPU (I can actually run both CPUs and diff them in real time).

I can also probe and capture any internal state with the JTAG FPGA debugger...

Wow!  my hero :bowdown:

[espskog]

How many ppl have Replays already?  Isn't it like 30 ppl?  Where are all these ppl?  Do they have some secret meeting place where they hang out and laff at all us oldsk00l A1200 lamers?  :lol:

The reason I ask is because if I am going to drop $1436.00 on a fully loaded Retro Replay Business Computer then I should probably make sure my game actually works on the Replay first.    Free download from Aminet here if anyone out there has a Replay and they want to check if it works:
http://aminet.net/package/game/strat/TotalChaosAGAr6

It really should work.  It is fully AmigaOS compliant and has been tested on a wide range of systems.  The only thing I am worried about is maybe if the Paula core has a tiny flaw in it then the music playback could go berzerk.  Mostly Octamed Sound Studio .meds and some good old protracker mods but modified to use a 1 line DMA-wait.

I don't use any weird instructions like movep.  I don't use weirdo lame addressing modes.  I don't even use bitfield instructions.  But I suppose maybe SASC might generate those in weird situations?  I doubt it but who knows?  I don't use any atomic Read-Modify-Write instructions.  So I am figuring it should work on the softcore cpu.  On the other hand, it is over 200,000 lines of code so...

There is a bug in the game so that soundfx playback can fail on SFS partitions.  Use FFS, PFS3 or ask me for the patch that fixes the problem.

Any place I could go to ask a Replay playtester to give it a quick test?

If there are any bugs, well... I have the source code to the whole game and a super powerful professional Source Level Debugger which displays both C and Asm sources simultaneously so I might be able to zoom right in on the problem and file a competent bug report.

I have one -- I have had it for quite some time. 2 years or so ?
At the moment it is just in the drawer. I am waiting for the daughterboard.
If someone really want to -- I could part with it and buy a new one when the daughterboard comes out as I will not use it before that anyway. Hwoever, this is a board which is one of the first 10 boards. It is even before mike started serialnumbering them

Someone make me an offer....the important thing is that if someone can use it, it is important so it goes to someone who needs it. I can wait for a new one...

Espskog

[freqmax]

The FPGA can pretend the keyboard input comes from 3rd and 4th joystick which can be wired to the GPIO port. No need for Atari 800

[Dopuser]

What for to wait for new one if you have old one there?
Any important differences between your prototype and final version?

[ChaosLord]

I have no idea when Replays will go on sale so I just sort of casually started shopping for bits and pieces to make my Ultimate Tactical Assault Replay Business Computer of Death(tm).

Here is a 32GB Micro SDHC card for $14.39 with promo code, limit 5 per customer.  And Free shipping.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313184&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20313184-L016A

Would that be acceptable for use in a Replay?  Yes/no/maybe/depends?

- its only 32GB
+ its cheap at $14.39 so even a poor lamer like me can afford it :laugh1:
+ it doesn't feel like I am getting raped by the exchange rate. :rofl:

If it will work... what would be the advantages of buying multiple ones?  

All u guys out there who have CF cards and such on ur Amiga, how many cards do u use and what do u use them for?


Would this card work on both the Replay board itself and/or the daughtercard?  (atm I am all mixed up about it... trying to remember... my brain have a stack overflow

[ChaosLord]

After a brief check it seems like the 64GB versions are $41.00 and the 128GB versions are $100.00  so the 32GB cards give the most GB per $

So even though I need and can use 128GB storage space I will probably just buy the 32GB ones since they are dirt cheap.  I will try to survive with a tiny hard drive...  I just hafta decide how many to buy....

[cunnpole]

Would that be acceptable for use in a Replay?  Yes/no/maybe/depends?

It's only a class 4 card which only guarantees a minimum or 4MB/s. 28MB/s has been quoted for max transfer rate. Highly unlikely you'd hit that but I'd go for a class 10 to make the most of it. Cheap cards tend to be a waste of money. I'd rather get a smaller card of higher quality.

[ChaosLord]

It's only a class 4 card which only guarantees a minimum or 4MB/s. 28MB/s has been quoted for max transfer rate. Highly unlikely you'd hit that but I'd go for a class 10 to make the most of it. Cheap cards tend to be a waste of money. I'd rather get a smaller card of higher quality.

Aha!  Thanx for the tip!

I am happy to pay extra $ for extra quality.   A 28MB/s hard drive would be more fun to drive around than a 4MB/s one even though it'll probably cost twice as much

[mikej]

Note it is around 28Mbit/sec from the SD card in SPI mode. Limitation is ARM and SD card max clock freq.
One reason we are looking an FPGA directly connected card on the daughterboard for bulk access.
/MikeJ

[ChaosLord]

@cunnpole

This one is only $20.00 for 72 hours.  32GB of space.  Writes up to 35 MB/s and reads up to 50 MB/s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178536&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20178536-L016B

20 bucks seems cheap enuff.