MiSTer FPGA Forum

zBeeble

The UART solution is pretty slow (~ 10kB/s) compared to real cards for Amigas (~ 100kB/s), so there is some justification to work on this. I see no extra value in implementing real hardware for network access, since a driver is needed in any way. Therefore going the A314 route seems to be the most efficient. Urm... Well... The A2065 has drivers. I...

zBeeble

The UART solution is pretty slow (~ 10kB/s) You can double it :) https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/advanced/computer/#cores-supporting-serial-connection Or you can multiply it by at least ten ... or more. Really... using the UART, the Amiga works hard for every byte. Using an ethernet or frame based transfer, you get the whole frame in ...

zBeeble

I was thinking, actually, of just using the exact register layout of the existing AMINET ethernet card that C= sold. The advantage is that you'd only be doing the FPGA and linux development --- no local development. In the end, you can have "cards" autoconfig onto an A500 or A1200 --- even though they only had edge connectors (or not? IDK...

zBeeble

So... Here's a thought I had: Why haven't we implemented the ethernet card? Not the whole ethernet card. Just enough of it to send the bytes of the packet up to the linux (where the ppp serial is going, if you're wondering). We should be able to then have the linux bridge the packet onto the lan. If we can do the full bridge, then the Amiga can hav...

zBeeble

As I was trying to grok everything required to make the Amiga core talk ppp at 10kbit over the serial hack --- and I was thinking that the last time I even thought about ppp had to be back around 1995 --- so period correct, I suppose ... ... I thought ... we have this FPGA. Can't we just provide a hack that moved frames from our core's memory to fr...

zBeeble

Other than HDMI and other than getting the HAT with VGA and a 3.5mm jack... are there pins on the main board that have the audio? Wiring up one connector is simpler than ordering a HAT.

zBeeble

afaik, the share folder only works after you can copy these few files to the Amiga. I'd like to achieve this without clonato or winuae.

Can someone put those files on a disk for me?

zBeeble

I suppose it just makes sense to me that these couple files --- key to making the Amiga useful ... that there'd be an ADF pre-packaged.

zBeeble

OK. Nice to know. I'm trying to completely avoid winuae. Are you saying that the amiga filesystem is one of the user-space filesystem plugins?

zBeeble

So... after much ado, I have my MiSTer working and my Amiga core working --- A1200, 68020, 256M RAM. Makes me kinda wonder how my 128M RAM figures into that, but no, maybe don't tell me. Anyways... I have installed WB 3.1 and have 3.1 roms and it works. I can also choose to use this hard drive I've downloaded and it has games and works. All good so...

zBeeble

In my 100% anecdotal experience yes, power supply voltage and stability matters. Stuffing mine with boards and USB devices also made things unstable at times. It doesn't always crash outright though, just gets wonky showing strange symptoms that are unpredictable and hard to reproduce. A beefier power supply fixed it for me. Got a simple 4A one, n...

zBeeble

And now returning to our previously asked question. ... so only one of my desktop monitors has HDMI. I briefly used that to test. I determined two things. The 128M RAM module seems to make things flake. It was previously reliable. Odd. Even though non-ram cores seem stable on the monitor ... they flake after awhile on the capture thing. ... so I or...

zBeeble

It wouldn't be the first time dd not followed by sync bit me, but that's probably all Linux then. You may want to tone it down with the snark a bit though. That's quite uncalled for. Sorry if it came across as snark. I'm just very direct. I'm not super familiar with Linux ... so it may still have buffered devices. You should be able to just use th...

zBeeble

I would try a reinstall with just a bare bones setup: HDMI to a screen. Dumb question: did you do a sync after the dd action in FreeBSD? So, in my other duties, I hack the FreeBSD kernel. I can tell you rather canonically that is a dumb question. When you dd to /dev/da0, you are using an unbuffered device. Access to buffered devices was removed fr...

zBeeble

I think I have more information. I first wondererd if my 2A power supply was too little. I procured a 4A power supply. The first screen of the install works flawlessly --- but then the screens with the static or the linux console are more flakey. Now... my setup is to use an HDMI capture device. It has worked fine in the past. Are there any issues ...

zBeeble

For informational purposes, I'm not a new MiSTer user. I've had my DE-10 for about 4 years and I've run various versions of MiSTer during that time. I've even tried my hand a few times and developing on several of the cores. But life goes on and I got busy. My last install was from 2020 or so ... so I decided to completely fresh install. Being what...

zBeeble

I've googled around a bit. Haven't been satisfied yet. Any pointers? If such things get deleted here, you can PM me?

zBeeble

Google's not been good to me so far, but really... the advice here is forget Amiga Forever and just find ROMs online somehwere?

zBeeble

OK. So that boots. Not entirely fun to be in 1.3, but I got some fond memories of AmigaBasic. So... I was encouraged to buy Amiga Forever to get the ROMs. Some point out that you can run the machine, save the rom to a disk and then read that disk. Some suggest that this doesn't work for the 3.x ROMs. I'm pretty fed up with Amiga Forever at this poi...

zBeeble

I've tried a few different roms. There isn't one labelled for a500. Only a590 etc.

zBeeble

So... I have an a600 3.1 ROM as Amiga/kick.rom. I have now new RAM that tests 100% good at 140Mhz. I have even installed a heat sink and a fan.

When I boot the amiga first, I get this screen:

: Amiga-Boot.jpg (61.1 KiB) Viewed 5825 times

Then if I goto the on-screen menu and choose reset, I get a black screen and the key for the on-screen menu no longer works.

Help?

zBeeble

I have the outcome of a curious experiment to report. It begs the question: What does the C=64 core use the RAM module for? Or maybe more correctly, how does it use it? Here's the setup. I seem to have a broken RAM module. I've attached two images. One is the memtest core running --- clearly errors --- doesn't even detect a size. I also attached an...

zBeeble

Well... the SRAM appears to work find for the C=64 core. I realize Amiga uses a lot more. Does this thing have a RAM test core?

zBeeble

Note... that the ROM in each case is loaded by selecting from a list in the OSD.

zBeeble

Ok. So as you can see on the screen... I've tried a number of different boot patterns. 8M fast / 2M chip AGA 68020 a1200 and 2M fast / 512 chip ECS and OCS a600. It doesn't seem to go. (see attached png)

zBeeble

Is there any way a core can probe the size of an SDRAM beforehand? Do we have a memory map anywhere of how cores use it? I'm trying to figure out where I can carve out 2M or even 16M for a 1750 Ram Expansion Unit (REU) for the C=64 port. It seems like the ROMs might be loaded into SDRAM instead of using a bunch of the LUTs. There are tiny parts of ...

zBeeble

To Add Detail Here... I think the PET (and possibly the C16) don't require the RAM expansion. I'm still reading source, for various reasons, but I suppose the C16 and PET can use the FPGA internal RAM rather than the expansion?

zBeeble

Thank-you. That helps a lot. I've also put together a few things --- trying to see everything that ties into c64_addr in c64.sv. So I'm getting there. At this point it would be really helpful to have a RAM map for the SRAM. I'm assuming the first 64K is the C64's RAM... but I suppose that's not necessarily so. Other data I'm expecting to be there a...

zBeeble

OK. Looking at sdram.v, I see that it has one busy looking (but small) always block. I suppose that does it.

But then I look at T65.v or cartridge.v and I'm not sure how they access the ram. I'm also looking at c64.sv to see if that glues it.

... where do these interconnect?

zBeeble

OK. I'm learning a lot from the code itself. And thank-you for your patience. Right now, the biggest gap that I know I have is how files connect. I have an example, too. So... I'm looking at the C64 core. c64.sv is system verilog. According to google, this is verilog++, kinda --- and includes some means to verify or test --- but why is only one fil...

MiSTer FPGA Forum

Search found 49 matches

Re: Ethernet: A thought on a contribution

Re: Ethernet: A thought on a contribution

Re: Ethernet: A thought on a contribution

Ethernet: A thought on a contribution

As I stare at the bits, I have an idea for some foundational multi-core kit.

Audio Pins?

Re: Chicken and Egg problem, but with files

Re: Chicken and Egg problem, but with files

Re: Chicken and Egg problem, but with files

Chicken and Egg problem, but with files

Re: RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

Re: RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

Re: RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

Re: RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

Re: RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

RE-new Install NOT Rebooting

Re: OK. Lines gone, RAM tests good, Amiga still not booting.

Re: OK. Lines gone, RAM tests good, Amiga still not booting.

Re: OK. Lines gone, RAM tests good, Amiga still not booting.

Re: OK. Lines gone, RAM tests good, Amiga still not booting.

OK. Lines gone, RAM tests good, Amiga still not booting.

C=64 core working with bad ram?

Re: Can't Load KERN.ROM

Re: Can't Load KERN.ROM

Re: Can't Load KERN.ROM

Re: More Configuration Bits?

Re: C16 and PET work: C64 Black screen.

Re: A matter of Bits and Cartridges.

Re: A matter of Bits and Cartridges.

Re: More Configuration Bits?