First Amiga 600 FPGA Accelerator - Vampire 600

[majsta]

Now I m at 1.83Mips
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[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by majsta

Now I m at 1.83Mips
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Nice. Have you tried with Peanut butter?

[NovaCoder]

Any plans to do a 1200 based accelerator after this one?

[majsta]

They are also plans for other Amiga's but U don't have them and until all code problems are solved there is no point starting new project. But to adapt this to other Amiga's is quite trivial once it's done. Design stays the same except 30 lines of code who needs some changes to support different bus cycles.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by majsta

They are also plans for other Amiga's but U don't have them and until all code problems are solved there is no point starting new project. But to adapt this to other Amiga's is quite trivial once it's done. Design stays the same except 30 lines of code who needs some changes to support different bus cycles.

That's good to hear

Much as I love my Blizz 1260, I believe the future is in FPGA based accelerators.

[majsta]

Smell the rubber 6.06 Mips







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[mfilos]

Congratz Majsta mate!!!
Keep up the good work

[kipper2k]

yah!. Very nice indeed I would install one of these in a heartbeat

[moijk]

Originally Posted by majsta

Smell the rubber 6.06 Mips

so you have gone from the slowest a600 to one of the faster. Do you have another gear to shift into, or is it close to the top speed?

[Cyprian]

Majsta, that accelerator looks really great.
if I correctly understand it is connected to A600 via PLCC68. Does it mean that it will be possible to connect it to Atari STE?

[majsta]

Thank you Yes there is lot of space for performance increase but code needs some adjustment.
@Cyprian This accelerator can't work with Atari STE because he uses peripheral bus for older devices. So signals like VPA,VMA and E are used. Those signals are not used on A600. In A500 they are so it could be done for any computer who uses MC68K but since I don't have Atari and admire only Amiga computers I won't start projects related to Atari or any other manufacturer but I m ready to help anyone who want's to start similar project.Also i think that autovectoring could be included in Atari design. I m not shore but I think that those are only 4 problems I could think of for creating Atari accelerator in FPGA.

[Cyprian]

Majsta, If you would add those signals you could extend scope of your project to Amiga500 and also Atari ST. Many people would be thankful to you.
Regarding FPGA re-programming, there are some smart people (e.g. around projects like Ultra/SatanDisk, Firebee) which could adopt your code to ST needs.

[majsta]

Project related to Amiga 500 FPGA accelerator is started 20 days ago.

[kipper2k]

With open source code it would be great that people could actually mod/improve on the baseline code to make it better and even allow for resident utils on boot up etc

[billt]

Originally Posted by majsta

Thank you Yes there is lot of space for performance increase but code needs some adjustment.
@Cyprian This accelerator can't work with Atari STE because he uses peripheral bus for older devices. So signals like VPA,VMA and E are used. Those signals are not used on A600.

It's just a couple PCB traces to the motherboard CPU pins. Add the traces so Atari fans can tinker there using the same board, and you can move on to more Amiga projects.

[majsta]

@bilt yes like I said code and everything is prepared to Vampire500. E,VMA,VPA generated any maybe in the near future I will show how they work. but like I said I don't have passion for any computer except Amiga. I would never create anything for any other computer. There is nothing interesting there. Only Amiga...

[billt]

Originally Posted by majsta

@bilt yes like I said code and everything is prepared to Vampire500. E,VMA,VPA generated any maybe in the near future I will show how they work. but like I said I don't have passion for any computer except Amiga. I would never create anything for any other computer. There is nothing interesting there. Only Amiga...

I'm only obsessed with Amiga myself, but at the same time I find your point of view to be disappointing.

For myself, my interests would be to make something interesting for Amiga. I would do that creation for my own enjoyment, and take it where my interests lead me. But at the same time, while I have never had any Atari computer and am certainly not fanatic about Atari, I don't see any benefit into designing hurdles against that into anything. A couple wires to a couple pins is not a great deal of effort. Leave them unconnected in the FPGA code for your own interests, but allow others to make use of them for other things. I can't imagine ever doing something and as part of that, specifically and intentionally and for no other purpose than doing somebit of the design in order to be an obstacle to someone else making use of the thing.

I suppose it will involve people taking your open-source design when released and adding the couple missing wires to it.

For myself, if I ever do anything in my FP68060 Zync project or similar for other CPU sockets, then I would start the PCB design wiring up all CPU socket pins to the FPGA. I just don't see any reason NOT to make the socket connections, even if they would end up unused inside the FPGA.

I hope you would reconsider this in your own designs.

[Lord Aga]

As I understood, everything Majsta does will be completely open sourced. So anyone will be able to pick it up and do the Atari modifications. Let Atari guys adapt it for their machines while Majsta does his magic for Amiga

[majsta]

@billt It is not that easy for me regarding adding support for Atari because I even have no idea what CPU they used(what socket DIL or PLCC) and don't want to waste time for investigation. I know that peripheral cycles I don't use on A600 is used on Atari for keyboard control and midi. If Atari uses DIL MC68K CPU then Atari will be supported with Vampire 500 version and complete system will work. I understand what you want to say but you must understand that my knowledge regarding Atari is minimal.

[majsta]

Motorrolin'