New with question 'bout Gameduino core


Guest Van

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Hi, new here. Been learning CPLDs and wanted to expand with FPGAs, Papilio looks like just the ticket. I am interested in 'porting' the Gameduino core on to the Papilio One 500K, is this a major task? or minor change?

  My main interest is in retro computers and sound chips, and more and more of the current mods and upgrades for the old systems are moving into FPGAs, so I'm looking at 6502 bus interfacing and logic level buffering. Any advice would be welcome!

Van

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Guest jibun

Hi, I'm also new here and know next to nothing about how to design FPGA code but I'm still enjoying the soft cores that Jack and Alvie hav prepared for us as I like to program for these processors. Lately I'v taken an interest in Forth and would indeed appreciate a port of Gameduino or at least the J1 Forth core to our dear Papilio. Failing that, another approach I could see would be to investigate how to get the Gameduino proper to co-exist as a shield on top of Papilio One. I presume this is mostly a matter of software as I don't see the Gameduino outputting 5V -- could be proven wrong, tho.

Anyways, best of luck. Regards,

  // Jarkko aka. jibun

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Hi Van,

Thanks for your interest in Papilio.

Unfortunately I have to say that you cannot easily port gameduino for P500, because it does not have enough internal RAM to handle the VGA output (400x300x9 - That's roughly 35Kbyte, a S3E500 has 46Kbyte RAM so not much more spare RAM for CPU and acceleration).

However Jack is working on a new external RAM module - That yes, might allow that and even more.

I've some guys porting old chip devices like pokey, ym2149 and sn76489 to ZPUino, if you're interested please let me know.

Alvie

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Guest jibun

Hi Alvie (and incidentally, Jack),

One question about the RAM wing. Do you think the final version will be usabl with the Papilio One 250k too? Just asking cos there are some memory-hungry software like certain programming languages (Scheme) and operating systems (TinyOS, Contiki) I'd like to see ported to the Papilio and being a cheap bastard I opted for the lower end when buying the ticket to this community. :)

  // Jarkko

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=>jibun, well using a Gamdeuino shield WITH a Papilio woud be doable, just a SPI connection; but I was interested in running the core on the S3E fpga as apposed to the S3A that is on the Gameduino shield.

=>alvieboy, Thanks that's the question I had, how much difference between the two devices (still learning the fpga eco system). So an ext. sram addon is in the pipeline, that's way cool. I know the main idea with the Papilio Project is the use of wings to reconfigure projects, but is there any thought to a carrier board concept. For me, an Audio mainboard with ADCs, DACs, RAM and some user interface would be sweet; but I guess, going too far would make a GP eval kit a better choice.

As to your other note, yes very interested in retro sound chips, been messing with Midibox.org projects and retro computers/game systems lately, hanging out at AtariAge.com and electro-music.com boards. What got me thinking about the Gameduino was a video mod project for the Atari 8bits, the VBXE board.

  Will be trying to run some of the fpga Synth cores that JovianPyx has been working on, very cool stuff. But need to build the minimum support circuits, he is using a full S3E starter board, I.E. SPI DAC, switches and display. Still working out how much of the starter board he has used and what I can ignore. Will be digging deeper!

  Just got my Papilio One diy kit in the mail today! so I'll be busy building it up in the next few days. Now, where is the magnifying glass?

Van

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Hey guys, sorry for getting in late on the discussion here. The Gameduino core is probably going to end up running fine on the Papilio FPGA Shield that I'm working on over at Kickstarter.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13588168/papilio-fpga-shield-for-arduino

I've already talked a little bit with James Bowman about supporting the Gameduino library on the Papilio FPGA Shield. He is all for it, I just want to figure out a way to give back to the Gameduino project some how. :)

Jack.

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WOW Jack, that kickstarter project looks great! I'll be keeping an eye on it; want to pledge but will have to wait a bit (money's tight right now). Having an easy entry into to FPGAs in the hands of the Ardunio community could REALLY change things! As things have been, FPGAs were exclusive to R&D depts and production lines; with a steep learning curve and a high entry price for someone like me (when I was at colledge, GALs were the next big 'thing' ). Can't wait to see what fantastic projects people will come up with!

Van

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