I have something new to show off today, something that i dont think has been done for the masses, i believe Commodore used something similar in the development stages of the Amiga.
We call it the "Romulator"...
It emulates the Amiga ROM and is for the 16bit computers. If demand is high enough we will finish up the 32 bit version. First here are its features.
- Accepts up to 1MB ROM images
- ROMs can be byteswapped or normal.
- Supports Rev3, 5, 6a and rev 8 A500s
- supports Amiga 600s
- Currently testing A1000 and A2000
- for those hackers, it is possible to support 2MB roms (You're on your own lol)
- USB and SD support.
- Roms are stored using onboard SD card.
- ROMs can be copied from PC to Amiga Romulator SD card
and ...
Description.
The Romulator sits in the Amiga ROM socket taking the place of the Amiga ROM. When you turn on the Amiga the Amiga is held in the Pause state and the Romulator will display its own bootup menu.
The menu will show all available ROMs you have on your SD card and you can select by keyboard arrows and mouse. Pressing no keys/mouse will cause the Amiga to continue its bootup after a selectable timeout period. Pressing an arrow key/mouse will stop the countdown and you can then move up and down and then press enter to select your ROM to load. The Amiga remembers the previosly used ROM and will load that.
The Romulator has 1 wire that needs to be connected to the Reset line of the Amiga. If using the A500MX keyboard there is a header onboard you just plug it in to. Using the A500 MX contoller on a regular KB also has a header (oops, i haven't told anyone about that yet... next week for that!). For the A600 the reset wire needs to be connected to a transistor leg. (easy solder) and i am also making a little easy install board similar to the Gotek ones i have just done.
The Menu is a throwback to the classic type intros and has music available. Many Many thanks to Mikestir for the coding on this, it is just bloomin AWESOME. (excuse my language). If Mike has time he will release updates that can allow the enduser to use their own music (No promises, he is very busy).
So what does this mean. For starters people can work on their own custom ROMs and try them on the Romulator to see if they are working. A 1MB rom image has lots of possibilities as regards custom libraries, onbord HRTMON (and if someone can do a onboard Action Replay ROM i will be forever in their debt (elbow elbow, nudge nudge). Hopefully this will now mean the end of the annoying burning of ROMs which is time consuming and not always successful.
So when is this available... I have a supply in front of me ready to be shipped to AOTL. It is finished, it was soooo hard to keep this quiet and i am glad that is is now free. I do not know what demand would be like for this and the price for parts is not too cheap so based on demand i will have more made according to demand. The board is a 4 layer board and uses an ARM processor.
For those who want one, supplies are limited and providing there is demand we will produce more.
Cost of a500/a600 versions are the same (Expected to be ~$79 USD), the only difference between the 2 of them is the board layout is reversed. I actually haven't tried in an A1000/A2000, i will add this check to the list of things to do,
If you want a 32bit version for your A1200 (with 2MB rom capability then flood this thread with requests and we can see about completing our design.
If i missed any info i am sure one of the AAA team members will chime in. Let me know if you have any questions.
Here is the reset wire that needs to be added to the A600. connect to where shown...
http://www.kipper2k.com/romboard/a600HWreset.jpg
Here is a small video of it used with my OSD Gotek and MX Keyboard
I will add more pictures/Videos later.