A314 - The RPi co-processor Official thread - Page 11

Lemaru · 13 April 2020, 15:07

Nice, nice to see the A600 version working too. I'm looking forward to this one!!

Eriond · 21 April 2020, 00:51

After a number of iterations (3), I'm happy to announce that A314-500 PCB v1.2 is now available! This version adds three new features:
1) Support for FPGA firmware flashing from the RPi. This means you no longer need an external JTAG programmer to update/change the firmware on the board.
2) More flexible RAM control. The board now contains separate jumpers to connect/disconnect each RAS line. This enables the use of a universal firmware that accepts many RAM environments (Std A500, A500+, JP3-modded, etc.)
3) Activity LED. The board has now a built-in LED driver that can be used to display "A314 Activity", similar to a disk or hard drive LED. This feature is not yet available in the current firmware.

Sim085 · 21 April 2020, 10:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eriond

2) More flexible RAM control. The board now contains separate jumpers to connect/disconnect each RAS line. This enables the use of a universal firmware that accepts many RAM environments (Std A500, A500+, JP3-modded, etc.)

Does this mean one would not need to mod a rev6a motherboard as described here (http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=141) as these could all be managed from the board itself?

I have a 1.1 on its way and was planning to mod my rev6a as described in that link to get 1MB chipRAM from the A314. Would I need to do anything else to the A314 for this to work? (example: update firmware?).

Eriond · 21 April 2020, 20:32

The new jumper on the A314 does only affect how the board reacts to the RAS signals from FatAgnus. Motherboard RAM is still controlled by motherboard jumpers, ie. yes, you still need to modify the JP3 setting:

The factory setting (JP3 and JP3B connected horizontally) will let RAS0 (JP3) continue to DRAM chips U16-U19, and RAS1 (JP3B) to chips U20-U23. If your motherboard only has U16-19 mounted, that means you have ½MB on board, and could then use the A314 v1.1 with JMP3 cleared to provide for the other ½MB of chipmem (assuming you have 8372A Agnus). This way you don't need to do any modifications to your motherboard.
If you feel that the A314 should provide for the whole 1MB of chipmem, then you need to cut at least JP3 to stop the motherboard DRAM from responding to RAS0, and instead set the JMP3 jumper on the A314.
You may wonder that the funny wire loop is doing with JP3B? It's there to allow for vertical jumping of 1-1 and 2-2, effectively swapping RAM banks U16-19 with U20-23. Not sure why you would want that, but its there and didn't cost Commodore a penny to implement

I found it clever and flexible, so you will find the same solution on the A314 v1.2 board at jumper block JMPB3.

If this all seems unnecessary complicated, let me give you some background:
The first (proper) iteration of A314, Beta-2, had both RAS0 and RAS1 hardwired to the FPGA. To avoid causing havoc with motherboard RAM accesses, we ignored the RAS0 input in the firmware, and only listened to RAS1. This was all fine with motherboard revisions up to 6a. Rev.8 is different as it has separate RAS lines for the expansion RAM to accommodate for the 2MB chipmem. Initially this was quickly remedied by enabling the RAS0 line in the A314 HDL code, and providing a different firmware. We realised that this was a less than perfect situation, having to maintain two sets of almost identical firmware, so a solution was made for A314 v1.1: the JMP3 jumper. This jumper controls whether RAS0 makes it to the FPGA or not. So our HDL can stay the same, while an external jumper dictates how the board should respond.
Later on, a few interested individuals had questions if their modded motherboards (with various RAM configurations) would work with the A314 or not, so to make our design as flexible as possible I "upgraded" JMP3 from v1.1 into JMPB3 in v1.2. That jumper block now allows your A314 to respond to either RAS0, RAS1, both 0 & 1, and even 0 & 1 swapped (remember that vertical trick?

) Hopefully this will cover all possible situations while keeping the firmware intact.

Fastdruid · 21 April 2020, 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eriond

Today Niklas gave me a new piece of software to try out for the A314: remote-mouse. It was partly due to my old fai(l)thful modded optical tank-mouse finally giving up on me yesterday. Niklas, being the generous person he always is, spent some hours programming and delivered a piece of software that lets you control your workbench environment using a device attached to the Raspberry Pi on the A314 board.

That's really cool. I'm really looking forwards to getting one (in the queue over at amibay!)

Presumably similar could be done for any other USB devices like keyboards as well.

What is the latency like? I could see that being a bit of an issue for example with USB joysticks.

Eriond · 21 April 2020, 21:16

We have only had a small test group, but some reported that there was noticeable lag, while others (me included) had no (or close to none) lag at all. It seems that lag comes from modern mice having too high report rate, thereby overloading the poor Amiga with coordinate updates.
Niklas is working on some clever code that filters out unnecessary reports, and throttles the updates. Hopefully that will remedy this particular source of lag.
Remember though, that this solution only works in system-friendly environments. Applications and games that rely on reading the Amiga hardware directly, will not work.

CrowStudio · 21 April 2020, 21:28

Hi!

Regarding the mouse lag, this depends on what mouse you are using - higher resolution = more lag.

Sim085 · 21 April 2020, 22:04

Thanks Eriond for the very detailed explanation. Much appreciated.

ealm · 28 April 2020, 10:03

Awesome work! Having been away from the Amiga for many years, and not being a programmer (except some basic and minor c and java in the 90's) I'm planning a comeback to the Amiga scene and has pre-ordered a Vampire V4 to start with. While waiting for my V4 I've been thinking about what to do with it and I’m curious to hear what others think about it. What I’m trying to do is to set up a “real” Amiga hardware and software environment, which at the same time should be able to run modern applications.

My plan is to use an A600 wedge case + keyrah and mount the V4 + a Raspberry Pi and a wifi nic in there. The Pi would act as a wifi internet gateway, firewall and file server, serving the Vampire over ethernet and with DHCP. Maybe even serve the V4 with its bluetooth stack.

Furthermore I’d like to be able start individual applications on the Pi X server from within Workbench/Wanderer, using VNC/Rdesktop (there are a few such programs for Amiga, though getting old in the tooth) in hosted window mode. The window theme in X on the Pi should match the Amiga Workbench. By using the file server volume for saving files anything I’d work on would be accessible from both machines.

Long term vision, which I couldn't pull off myself, would be to have management of the Pi Linux system more integrated in the Amiga. For example a unified App store for Amiga and Linux apps where installing a Linux apps evokes the package manager on the Pie to install the desired app. Thereafter a script sets up a short cut in Workbench for the application, which runs over VNC or similar solution, hosted in its own Workbench-looking X window.
Such software can be useful for more than just people running V4 + Pi. For example anyone with an old Android phone can root it an install Linux, then connect it to the home router with USB-ethernet adapter and have the X server accessable from any Amiga on the same network. Or just tape up the Android phone inside the Amiga case instead of mounting a Pi.

It seems the a314 is at least partly overlapping what I'm talking about and I'd be happy to donate to a project moving in this direction. Could a modified a314 be implemented in the V4 FPGA, or does it need to run its own? I'm sure there are things to object to in my suggestion, for technical reasons. See it more as an laymans vision.

fotios · 28 April 2020, 13:34

Hi, great project!

Just getting back into the Amiga scene after a couple of decades...so apologies if these questions have already been answered.

Which versions of the Raspberry Pi are supported?
I see many variants Pi 3, Pi 3B+, Pi 3modelA+, Pi 4B etc. They also offer different RAM configurations (1GB, 2GB, 4GB for the Pi 4). What is the recommended Pi RAM for the A314?

Is the stock Amiga500 power supply sufficient?

Does the A314 support all of the ECS Amiga500+ screen modes, e.g. PAL Super High Resolution?

If the text based Links2 web browser is installed on the Pi, can it be launched with the A314 Pi command from an AmigaOS Shell? Or does AmigaOS 3.1.4 shell not support ANSI with 16 colours?

Thanks!

CrowStudio · 28 April 2020, 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by fotios

...Which versions of the Raspberry Pi are supported?
I see many variants Pi 3, Pi 3B+, Pi 3modelA+, Pi 4B etc. They also offer different RAM configurations (1GB, 2GB, 4GB for the Pi 4). What is the recommended Pi RAM for the A314?!

I would recommend Pi3B or Pi3B+ However, a Pi2B(+) with a wifi dongle will also work, only bit slower.

Quote:

Is the stock Amiga500 power supply sufficient?

If you do not us Pi4 I think there will be no problem, The Pi4 without any power hungry accelerators and other cool stuff will most likely also work, maybe Eriond can answer this better.

Quote:

Does the A314 support all of the ECS Amiga500+ screen modes, e.g. PAL Super High Resolution?

If you are using RemoteWB, it will only support 640x256x3 at the moment, otherwise no problem as far as I know.

Quote:

If the text based Links2 web browser is installed on the Pi, can it be launched with the A314 Pi command from an AmigaOS Shell? Or does AmigaOS 3.1.4 shell not support ANSI with 16 colours?

This I leave for others to answer ;-)

Fastdruid · 28 April 2020, 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by fotios

Is the stock Amiga500 power supply sufficient

It will depend which you have. There are to my knowledge 3 original power supplies for the A500 which provide 2.5A, 4.3A and 4.5A on +5V.

A stock A500 will use ~2A peak.

The recommended power supply to the RPi is

RPi 2 - 1.8A
RPi 3 - 2.5A
RPi 4 - 3A

However that is for the peripherals as well, the typical bare board is as follows (worst board in each series)

RPi 2 - 350mA
RPi 3 - 500mA
RPi 4 - 600mA

So if you have one of the 2.5A PSU's you do are going to be on the very edge of not have enough power. You should be ok with any of the others however I would still suggest if you use anything USB to use an external powered hub.

Eriond · 28 April 2020, 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by fotios

Hi, great project!

Just getting back into the Amiga scene after a couple of decades...so apologies if these questions have already been answered.

Thank you, I'm happy that you like it. And welcome back to the scene. Be honest, in your heart you never really left, did you?

Regarding the stock PSU, let me give you my view: All stock PSUs are some 30+ years old now. They all have electrolytical caps in them which are prone to drying out and eventually failing. This will be the case for all Amigas as well, although the A500 motherboard and its caps seem to hold a bit better compared to A600 and A1200 SMD caps.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is if you have plans for using your Amiga from now on, do it a favour and buy a new PSU. I know Jens at Individual is in the making of a high quality unit, and others are already available. You can read more about it here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=101592

I wish you much fun with your Amiga!

fotios · 29 April 2020, 13:37

Looks like I'll also add a new power supply to my shopping list.

Many thanks for the responses.

trixster · 30 April 2020, 11:45

Has anyone tried the A314 in conjunction with an ACA500Plus?

Lemaru · 30 April 2020, 11:54

How far off is release of the 600 version?

Eriond · 26 May 2020, 21:25

Not far at all. Right now it's a matter of arranging the GitHub repository really.
The board is working fine, and some PCBs have been sent out to our community manufacturers. If we're lucky they will be offering a small batch of ready-built boards soon. Keep an eye on AmiBay.

CrowStudio · 26 May 2020, 21:29

@Eriond Even though I have no room in my A600, sign me up for one! ;-)

Lemaru · 26 May 2020, 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eriond

Not far at all. Right now it's a matter of arranging the GitHub repository really.
The board is working fine, and some PCBs have been sent out to our community manufacturers. If we're lucky they will be offering a small batch of ready-built boards soon. Keep an eye on AmiBay.

I like to assemble hardware myself so if there's any blank boards going or the Gerber's or design files are available to have boards made then I'll go that route if possible

I have finished making HID2Ami boards, and A600 chip and fast ram boards so a new project would be good

alestanga · 03 June 2020, 12:44

Hi guys.
I’ve just ordered the components and the PCB.
sadly not all components are in stock at digikey so I’ll have to wait till august it seems.
Since I’m trying to make a 1.2 board, I’ll be able to program the firmware directly from the raspberry right?
No jtag and USB blaster needed?
This is my first SMD soldering project, so, wish me luck

21 April 2020, 00:51	#202
Eriond Happy Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 101	Released: PCB v1.2 After a number of iterations (3), I'm happy to announce that A314-500 PCB v1.2 is now available! This version adds three new features: 1) Support for FPGA firmware flashing from the RPi. This means you no longer need an external JTAG programmer to update/change the firmware on the board. 2) More flexible RAM control. The board now contains separate jumpers to connect/disconnect each RAS line. This enables the use of a universal firmware that accepts many RAM environments (Std A500, A500+, JP3-modded, etc.) 3) Activity LED. The board has now a built-in LED driver that can be used to display "A314 Activity", similar to a disk or hard drive LED. This feature is not yet available in the current firmware.

21 April 2020, 20:32	#204
Eriond Happy Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 101	Jumpers on the A314 The new jumper on the A314 does only affect how the board reacts to the RAS signals from FatAgnus. Motherboard RAM is still controlled by motherboard jumpers, ie. yes, you still need to modify the JP3 setting: The factory setting (JP3 and JP3B connected horizontally) will let RAS0 (JP3) continue to DRAM chips U16-U19, and RAS1 (JP3B) to chips U20-U23. If your motherboard only has U16-19 mounted, that means you have ½MB on board, and could then use the A314 v1.1 with JMP3 cleared to provide for the other ½MB of chipmem (assuming you have 8372A Agnus). This way you don't need to do any modifications to your motherboard. If you feel that the A314 should provide for the whole 1MB of chipmem, then you need to cut at least JP3 to stop the motherboard DRAM from responding to RAS0, and instead set the JMP3 jumper on the A314. You may wonder that the funny wire loop is doing with JP3B? It's there to allow for vertical jumping of 1-1 and 2-2, effectively swapping RAM banks U16-19 with U20-23. Not sure why you would want that, but its there and didn't cost Commodore a penny to implement I found it clever and flexible, so you will find the same solution on the A314 v1.2 board at jumper block JMPB3. If this all seems unnecessary complicated, let me give you some background: The first (proper) iteration of A314, Beta-2, had both RAS0 and RAS1 hardwired to the FPGA. To avoid causing havoc with motherboard RAM accesses, we ignored the RAS0 input in the firmware, and only listened to RAS1. This was all fine with motherboard revisions up to 6a. Rev.8 is different as it has separate RAS lines for the expansion RAM to accommodate for the 2MB chipmem. Initially this was quickly remedied by enabling the RAS0 line in the A314 HDL code, and providing a different firmware. We realised that this was a less than perfect situation, having to maintain two sets of almost identical firmware, so a solution was made for A314 v1.1: the JMP3 jumper. This jumper controls whether RAS0 makes it to the FPGA or not. So our HDL can stay the same, while an external jumper dictates how the board should respond. Later on, a few interested individuals had questions if their modded motherboards (with various RAM configurations) would work with the A314 or not, so to make our design as flexible as possible I "upgraded" JMP3 from v1.1 into JMPB3 in v1.2. That jumper block now allows your A314 to respond to either RAS0, RAS1, both 0 & 1, and even 0 & 1 swapped (remember that vertical trick? ) Hopefully this will cover all possible situations while keeping the firmware intact.

21 April 2020, 21:16	#206
Eriond Happy Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 101	We have only had a small test group, but some reported that there was noticeable lag, while others (me included) had no (or close to none) lag at all. It seems that lag comes from modern mice having too high report rate, thereby overloading the poor Amiga with coordinate updates. Niklas is working on some clever code that filters out unnecessary reports, and throttles the updates. Hopefully that will remedy this particular source of lag. Remember though, that this solution only works in system-friendly environments. Applications and games that rely on reading the Amiga hardware directly, will not work. Last edited by Eriond; 21 April 2020 at 21:33.

21 April 2020, 21:28	#207
CrowStudio Registered User Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: Göteborg / Sweden Posts: 32	Hi! Regarding the mouse lag, this depends on what mouse you are using - higher resolution = more lag. Last edited by CrowStudio; 21 April 2020 at 21:36. Reason: removed redundant text

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13 April 2020, 15:07	#201
Lemaru Registered User Join Date: Oct 2016 Location: Berks, UK Posts: 271	Nice, nice to see the A600 version working too. I'm looking forward to this one!!

21 April 2020, 22:04	#208
Sim085 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 962	Thanks Eriond for the very detailed explanation. Much appreciated.

28 April 2020, 10:03	#209
ealm Registered User Join Date: Apr 2020 Location: Vienna Posts: 19	Awesome work! Having been away from the Amiga for many years, and not being a programmer (except some basic and minor c and java in the 90's) I'm planning a comeback to the Amiga scene and has pre-ordered a Vampire V4 to start with. While waiting for my V4 I've been thinking about what to do with it and I’m curious to hear what others think about it. What I’m trying to do is to set up a “real” Amiga hardware and software environment, which at the same time should be able to run modern applications. My plan is to use an A600 wedge case + keyrah and mount the V4 + a Raspberry Pi and a wifi nic in there. The Pi would act as a wifi internet gateway, firewall and file server, serving the Vampire over ethernet and with DHCP. Maybe even serve the V4 with its bluetooth stack. Furthermore I’d like to be able start individual applications on the Pi X server from within Workbench/Wanderer, using VNC/Rdesktop (there are a few such programs for Amiga, though getting old in the tooth) in hosted window mode. The window theme in X on the Pi should match the Amiga Workbench. By using the file server volume for saving files anything I’d work on would be accessible from both machines. Long term vision, which I couldn't pull off myself, would be to have management of the Pi Linux system more integrated in the Amiga. For example a unified App store for Amiga and Linux apps where installing a Linux apps evokes the package manager on the Pie to install the desired app. Thereafter a script sets up a short cut in Workbench for the application, which runs over VNC or similar solution, hosted in its own Workbench-looking X window. Such software can be useful for more than just people running V4 + Pi. For example anyone with an old Android phone can root it an install Linux, then connect it to the home router with USB-ethernet adapter and have the X server accessable from any Amiga on the same network. Or just tape up the Android phone inside the Amiga case instead of mounting a Pi. It seems the a314 is at least partly overlapping what I'm talking about and I'd be happy to donate to a project moving in this direction. Could a modified a314 be implemented in the V4 FPGA, or does it need to run its own? I'm sure there are things to object to in my suggestion, for technical reasons. See it more as an laymans vision.

28 April 2020, 13:34	#210
fotios Registered User Join Date: Apr 2020 Location: Greece Posts: 2	Hi, great project! Just getting back into the Amiga scene after a couple of decades...so apologies if these questions have already been answered. Which versions of the Raspberry Pi are supported? I see many variants Pi 3, Pi 3B+, Pi 3modelA+, Pi 4B etc. They also offer different RAM configurations (1GB, 2GB, 4GB for the Pi 4). What is the recommended Pi RAM for the A314? Is the stock Amiga500 power supply sufficient? Does the A314 support all of the ECS Amiga500+ screen modes, e.g. PAL Super High Resolution? If the text based Links2 web browser is installed on the Pi, can it be launched with the A314 Pi command from an AmigaOS Shell? Or does AmigaOS 3.1.4 shell not support ANSI with 16 colours? Thanks!

29 April 2020, 13:37	#214
fotios Registered User Join Date: Apr 2020 Location: Greece Posts: 2	Looks like I'll also add a new power supply to my shopping list. Many thanks for the responses.

30 April 2020, 11:45	#215
trixster Guru Meditating Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: England Posts: 2,349	Has anyone tried the A314 in conjunction with an ACA500Plus?

30 April 2020, 11:54	#216
Lemaru Registered User Join Date: Oct 2016 Location: Berks, UK Posts: 271	How far off is release of the 600 version?

26 May 2020, 21:25	#217
Eriond Happy Registered User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 101	Not far at all. Right now it's a matter of arranging the GitHub repository really. The board is working fine, and some PCBs have been sent out to our community manufacturers. If we're lucky they will be offering a small batch of ready-built boards soon. Keep an eye on AmiBay.

26 May 2020, 21:29	#218
CrowStudio Registered User Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: Göteborg / Sweden Posts: 32	@Eriond Even though I have no room in my A600, sign me up for one! ;-)

03 June 2020, 12:44	#220
alestanga Registered User Join Date: Jun 2020 Location: Romanengo, Italy Posts: 20	Hi guys. I’ve just ordered the components and the PCB. sadly not all components are in stock at digikey so I’ll have to wait till august it seems. Since I’m trying to make a 1.2 board, I’ll be able to program the firmware directly from the raspberry right? No jtag and USB blaster needed? This is my first SMD soldering project, so, wish me luck

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