Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

nano
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Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by nano »

Hello all,

It really isn't a new topic at all since endeavours for creating such expansion exist since a looong time ago.
There is a well documented hardware montage in this magazine from the time. The most current (and also well documented) experiment on that topic I know about is the Speak-SID board from Michael Wessel.

Given that the MiSTer is an amazing playground for computer breeding, I have tinkered a bit with Verilog and Quartus in the last weeks to see what I could get running. Since most of the component were readily available, as well as an existing portage of the excellent PlayCity expansion, it was just a matter of plugging everything correctly together. The only thing I couldn't figure out though, was how to plug the SID module from C64 Core and I had to go for the (relatively simpler :shock:) module developed by Thomas Kindler. As a result the SID chips are 6581 model only.

On the software side to see if everything was working as expected, I have adapted the RSX program provided with the Amstrad CPC International magazine and the SID player found with the Speak-SID expansion, which is based on a source code originally written by Simon Owen for the SAM Coupé.
So here also I didn't had to do much myself ;)

Hope that you enjoy.
I attach the .rbf file and the test disk.
If you want to tinker with this Core on your own, I have put the source in Github

Attachments
sidtest.zip
SID Test DSK
(27.84 KiB) Downloaded 138 times
Amstrad.zip
Amstrad Core with SID expansion (.rbf)
(1.03 MiB) Downloaded 143 times
gibs
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Re: Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by gibs »

Thanks :)

How does it works?
Only SIDTEST2 produce some sounds :)

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tontonkaloun
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Re: Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by tontonkaloun »

gibs wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 6:10 pm Thanks :)

How does it works.
Only SIDTEST2 produce some sounds :)
same ...
nano
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Re: Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by nano »

Sorry...there was a glitch with the last line of the sidplay.bas file :D
It should be working now.
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sidtest.zip
SID Test DSK (.dsk)
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gibs
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Re: Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by gibs »

The are some slowdowns with Cybernoid 2 and I think Ocean Loader doesn't play very well .
But pretty good job ! Hope you will continue to improve it.

nano
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Re: Amstrad Core with SID Expansion

Unread post by nano »

Nice playlist :D
There are many ways of improvement (and enjoyment 8-)) indeed, one being to figure out how to make use of the actual SID module from the C64 Core...
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