Add-on card emulation

[Pyromania]

Will WinUAE continue this trend of emulating Amiga add-on cards? It even did what some said was impossible, emulating CyberStormPPC. If this trend continues why not emulate one of the coolest cards for the Amiga, the Video Toaster 2000 or 4000? Or what about DCTV emulation?

[Toni Wilen]

(Moved from beta thread)

I am not interested in Toaster, also it has too many non-emulated chips, probably much more complex than CSPPC from emulation point of view. CSPPC was technically easy, "only" needed some glue code between UAE and QEMU PPC emulator. Hardest part was IO space reverse-engineering, even SCSI chip was already emulated, Toaster most likely has huge undocumented IO space.

DCTV: if someone explains how the image is encoded (Mark k and me tried but we didn't get far). DCTV has big custom chip that does all the magic.

[Pyromania]

Does anyone write plug-ins for UAE or hack away at the source that might be interested? I have all the developer docs and hardware that I can send them. Also, all the software that runs on it are open source. The Video Toaster 4000 card is over 20 years old now. There has to be a way to do it in software, at least enough to get the open source software to boot up and run. Toaster hardware IO may already be understandable by looking at it's open source software. I say may because I'm not a programmer thus do not know for sure.

What's the story on Ham-E emulation? Is that working or being worked on?

[b0lt-thrower]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

(Moved from beta thread)

I am not interested in Toaster, also it has too many non-emulated chips, probably much more complex than CSPPC from emulation point of view. CSPPC was technically easy, "only" needed some glue code between UAE and QEMU PPC emulator. Hardest part was IO space reverse-engineering, even SCSI chip was already emulated, Toaster most likely has huge undocumented IO space.

DCTV: if someone explains how the image is encoded (Mark k and me tried but we didn't get far). DCTV has big custom chip that does all the magic.

If you were interested, you actually might get some help from Newtek themselves as they were supportive of an Open Video Toaster initiative some years back - here's the project's page:

http://www.discreetfx.com/openvideotoaster.html

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

What's the story on Ham-E emulation? Is that working or being worked on?

It works in the current WinUAE 3.1 beta. There are a couple of issues but it is quite usable. The issues: display position is offset down in HAM-E mode, and HAM-E mode may not switch off when it would with real hardware (e.g. with a HAM-E screen behind, drag down Workbench to reveal it).

I've been looking into DCTV some more over the past few days. Hopefully I'll get there eventually.

[Pyromania]

@b0lt-thrower

Thanx for the link, was not aware of that site (was being sarcastic since I maintain the site).



The chipset on the Video Toaster 4000 is not as complicated as AGA and all Toaster software is open source so emulating this board is not impossible. I have a more complete ISO of the sources so if anyone wants them please let me know.

[wXR]

Pyro can you zone those?

[Toni Wilen]

I can check sources but I am still quite sure it won't include enough information unless it really describes hardware in detail. In low level, what the hardware actually does = not a black box that has some registers.

[Pyromania]

I'll put it in the zone tonight

[mark_k]

Emulation of the Video Toaster effects on source video might be a little... complicated. The Toaster works with a digitised composite video signal, it doesn't decode that. See this patent which relates to that.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Emulation of the Video Toaster effects on source video might be a little... complicated. The Toaster works with a digitised composite video signal, it doesn't decode that. See this patent which relates to that.

"Great".. Digitized composite color signals, color phases and so on. This is really complex stuff to emulate and has nothing in common with Amiga video or RTG boards.

Looks even worse than I originally though..

[Pyromania]

What about something easier like the Opalvision?

[b0lt-thrower]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

@b0lt-thrower

Thanx for the link, was not aware of that site.

de Nada. I might, if I were you, mirror the contents locally; this is one of those things that might die on the vine due to neglect (which is no insult meant to DFX if they're still actively pursuing it, but are happy with their site as-is)...with no major updates in almost 10 years now it might behoove someone to snag the whole shebang if they have an interest in continuing the project themselves (I don't, but, again, if).

[Pyromania]

Do you know who owns that site? (I was being sarcastic, I maintain the site).

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

What about something easier like the Opalvision?

Interesting thing.. (after checking documentation which surprisingly explained lots of hardware level stuff). Uses digital RGBI lines (like DCTV/HAM-E and others) so at least it fits better to currently existing emulation.

Does it have enough existing software/images to be worth the trouble?

[Pyromania]

Opalvision or Toaster? Opalvision has a great paint program and karati game. Toaster has a ton of software.

[Pyromania]

Goal should be to get software running, not do video production via emulation.

[AVH_2009]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Goal should be to get software running, not do video production via emulation.

The goal shouldt be, to get the Toaster under Winuae working,
this would be fine, because the software that depends on it is realy great.

When you upload the toaster files to the zone?

[Pyromania]

Sorry for the delay, works been super busy. I'll upload tonight.

[Pyromania]

Zone only allows 20MB max, compressed ISO is over 200MB!