A314 - The RPi co-processor Official thread

[Niklas]

Originally Posted by CrowStudio

Did I get it right that it could be possible to share a total of 1MB of chip ram if you disable the chip ram on the A500 6a motherboard by cutting J3 and J7?

If you have a rev 6 with an 8372A Agnus, and do the 1 MB chip modification (as described here) and then cut JP3 in order to disable the mainboard DRAM, then A314 can provide all of the 1 MB of chip ram. All of the memory on A314 can be accessed (shared) by the Raspberry Pi.

Originally Posted by CrowStudio

Would this benefit the memory access times?

No, the memory access times are unaffected.

[CrowStudio]

Originally Posted by Niklas

If you have a rev 6 with an 8372A Agnus, and do the 1 MB chip modification (as described here) and then cut JP3 in order to disable the mainboard DRAM, then A314 can provide all of the 1 MB of chip ram. All of the memory on A314 can be accessed (shared) by the Raspberry Pi.



No, the memory access times are unaffected.

OK, sounds great! Even if it does not affect the access times, I guess it would be beneficial to get a larger shared memory area?

*edit* Is it possible to add extra slow as well, similar to the "Amiga 500 512KB/2MB Memory Expansion" sold at AmigaStore? *edit*

[ugorampazzo]

Hi! Thanks a lot! I've a very very busy day-by-day until the end of the year, so the time-frame for my Amiga-things are in the weekend. I'll look at it, and I'll log at EFNET.

[Eriond]

Originally Posted by ugorampazzo

Hi! Thanks a lot! I've a very very busy day-by-day until the end of the year, so the time-frame for my Amiga-things are in the weekend. I'll look at it, and I'll log at EFNET.

Hi! Been away for a while, so I haven't seen your post until now. How did it work out for you? Have you managed to get the board up and working?
This is the procedure I use once I have finished soldering an A314 board:
1) connect 5V (and GND) to the test point(s) at the top left corner of the board. Set your lab PSU to current limiting 0.2A, or so. An "empty" A314 (without RPi) consumes less than 80mA. This will act as a crude safety measure, should there be any shorts or other issues with the board.
2) If it's stable at reasonable current consumption, go on to checking the 5.15V at the RPi header (pins 2&4), the 4.3V and the 3.3V (at the test points next to the 5V).
3) Assuming that all voltages are within spec, connect your JTAG programmer, and download the bitstream to the FPGA, while still on lab power.
Now you can connect the board to yourAmiga, and check if:
4.a) There is extra memory detected and available, and
4.b) You can set the RTC, and it's keeping the time even after cold restart. (remember to insert a battery, though )
From there on you can continue with adding a RPi (while powered off!), and following the software installation steps as mentioned in our Github Wiki.

[CrowStudio]

Will this work with the PiZeroW, or does it not have enough memory/power?
*edit* could not find any comments regarding what Raspberry Pi model is needed in your read-me at GitHub *edit*

Keep up the good work and merry x-mas! :-)

[Eriond]

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've had a RPi0W laying around on my desk for a year or so, but haven't tried it yet. In theory, there shouldn't be an issue. Still, it should be properly tested and verified.
I won't do that right now though, because the Zero is going to be soldered to our first A600 prototype any day now.
We will release some information about the outcomes of that work here, but if you prefer to have near-realtime updates, please join our IRC channel at Efnet: #a314

[CrowStudio]

Originally Posted by Eriond

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've had a RPi0W laying around on my desk for a year or so, but haven't tried it yet. In theory, there shouldn't be an issue. Still, it should be properly tested and verified.
I won't do that right now though, because the Zero is going to be soldered to our first A600 prototype any day now.
We will release some information about the outcomes of that work here, but if you prefer to have near-realtime updates, please join our IRC channel at Efnet: #a314

Hehe, no worries! Sounds interesting with the A600 prototype ?
Happy new year and keep up the good work! ??

[hyami]

A314 for A600 prototype? Pictures or it didn't happen :-P

[Eriond]

Of course, you're right. Here are the pictures, because it did happen!
https://i.imgur.com/rW6HeKw.jpg
With (optional) LED board attached: https://i.imgur.com/HJrkjvn.jpg
Some work-in-progress: https://imgur.com/a/VQsdWUe

The LED board comes as a snap-off part of the main PCB, for those that would like some indication of A314 activity on their keyboard (disk LED is replaced by a red/green LED to distinguish between DISK and A314). There will also be an option to multiplex A314 activity onto the existing LED board (for the purists )
Stay tuned, 2020 will be an interesting year!

[CrowStudio]

Really nice work!

Too bad you loose the possibility to use the ECS v2. I guess there you have to decide what you want the most! ;-)

[PR77]

Great work guys... I really like the A600 option... Nice PCB layout too, from what I could see in the pictures...

[Eriond]

Short update re. the A314-600: It is working, it does everything the 500 version is capable of, albeit possibly slightly slower due to the "simpler" SoC of the Raspberry Zero W.
MP3 audio plays flawlessly, and internet downloads are fast enough
A nice side-effect of the new design is that you no longer are required to have a ByteBlaster JTAG interface to program the FPGA. That is taken care of on the Pi, thanks to great work from Nick Kovach from marsohod.org who gave us a configurable remote JTAG driver.

I just ran some DiskSpeed tests, and the results are good! https://pastebin.com/mPqFtZnS

Now I will do a small redesign of the PCB to address a couple of things I'm not completely satisfied with, and hopefully after that we will have a v1.0 ready for public release. Stay tuned!

[CrowStudio]

Originally Posted by Eriond

Short update re. the A314-600: It is working, it does everything the 500 version is capable of, albeit possibly slightly slower due to the "simpler" SoC of the Raspberry Zero W.
MP3 audio plays flawlessly, and internet downloads are fast enough
A nice side-effect of the new design is that you no longer are required to have a ByteBlaster JTAG interface to program the FPGA. That is taken care of on the Pi, thanks to great work from Nick Kovach from marsohod.org who gave us a configurable remote JTAG driver.

I just ran some DiskSpeed tests, and the results are good! https://pastebin.com/mPqFtZnS

Now I will do a small redesign of the PCB to address a couple of things I'm not completely satisfied with, and hopefully after that we will have a v1.0 ready for public release. Stay tuned!

Oh, you gonna add support for the ECS v2?! ;-)


It's almost like I have to get another A600 for this one B-)

[Eriond]

Originally Posted by CrowStudio

Oh, you gonna add support for the ECS v2?! ;-)

It's almost like I have to get another A600 for this one B-)

No, there's no room for that... but maybe, just maybe, there will be a solution on par with the ECS, but as a separate "product". No promises.

Either way, You really should get one of these babies! When I sit by an Amiga that lacks its A314 companion, I feel hampered and constrained. It's 2020 now. All Amigas deserve an A314

[CrowStudio]

Originally Posted by Eriond

No, there's no room for that... but maybe, just maybe, there will be a solution on par with the ECS, but as a separate "product". No promises.

Originally Posted by Eriond

Either way, You really should get one of these babies! When I sit by an Amiga that lacks its A314 companion, I feel hampered and constrained. It's 2020 now. All Amigas deserve an A314

Fingers crossed that Kikems at RetroWiki will getenough to build a batch, only 17 have shown interest so far, he needs 30 to pull it of!

[Eriond]

That is one of the mysteries of this project, to me. What is it that makes people so reluctant to get one of these boards?
I get it that far from everyone feels confident with a soldering iron, but as we've seen, there's more than enough of us hardware geeks to make the boards. Still, only 17 people in the whole (english-speaking) Amiga community are interested enough to get one... it puzzels me.
Have we missed something here? Is the price point too high? Or maybe these are not the features that Amigans in general want?
Another thing is that no one has contributed to the Git repo, apart from myself and Niklas. That is possibly explainable by the minute amount of boards built and used throughout the world, but still...

[CrowStudio]

Originally Posted by Eriond

...Still, only 17 people in the whole (english-speaking) Amiga community are interested enough to get one... it puzzels me.

It is also odd that Kikems only post on a spanish-speaking forum, I suggested that he should post in EAB or AmiBay.

...Is the price point too high?

I have seen people complain about the price Kikems asks for - 98 EUR + shipping. However, I cannot understand why they think that is a high price when the parts+ PCB cost around 80 EUR if I am not wrong - when ordering single components that is!

...Or maybe these are not the features that Amigans in general want?

The features are killer features I think, you have to be blind if you miss the possibilities it opens up for the Amiga!


Keep up the good work!

[Eriond]

Thank you for you kind words. We'll keep pushing new and interesting stuff free of charge for some time to come
I don't have all the details yet, but I believe the 600 version will be a bit cheaper due to some optimizations. More info on that later, when I have a proper BOM ready.
There are some options to make a CR version for the 500, but I don't think that cost is the issue. You're not into Amiga because you could manage to get it cheap somewhere.

[Cobe]

I think that you should rename thread, add 'RPi add-on for Amiga' or something like that, A314 doesn't tell much... I clicked it out of curiosity and I was surprised and really liked what I saw.

[utri007]

I have watched this thread and in post #157 first time somebody says that there option to buy one from ??? Kikem????