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[zylesea]

Originally Posted by m3x

Plus, the presence of a FPGA open up more opportunities to personalize the board for the industrial market, since there is still free space to be used on the XP and XP2.

While you are just here: can you provide a rough nimber about industrial use? No details needed, but are industrial customers rather 10% of the market (in the manner of sold items) or 90%, 0% or 50%. Your word would be evidence enough for me.

[Piru]

Originally Posted by m3x

Just a few words to clarify the FPGA usage on the Sam boards: indeed the FPGA _is_ currently used on both 440 and 460 (more on the new 460 than on the 440)
Instead using a CPLD as a "glue chip" to control several signals on the board, we decided to use a more versatile FPGA.
Teorically speaking, if you remove the FPGA chip from the board, it won't work at all.

Plus, the presence of a FPGA open up more opportunities to personalize the board for the industrial market, since there is still free space to be used on the XP and XP2.

We know the FPGA is not currently used on the Amiga side, but this isn't the primary reason for the presence of the FPGA on our boards.

So basically you have no intentions to release any documentation on how to use the FPGA? Where's this Amiga custom HW emulation for SAM 440?

It's rather interesting considering the effort put to marketing the FPGA as the wonder device here: http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/Bitplane15.pdf

Wouldn't it be time to admit that no amiga programmers will ever have access to the FPGA?

[m3x]

Originally Posted by Piru

So basically you have no intentions to release any documentation on how to use the FPGA? Where's this Amiga custom HW emulation for SAM 440?

It's rather interesting considering the effort put to marketing FPGA a the wonder device here: http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/Bitplane15.pdf

Where I said we don't release any documentation about the FPGA ?
What an interested developer needs to use the XP/XP2 FPGA is already on LatticeSemi web site (tools, datasheet, application notes, IP etc..)
A LatticeSemi JTAG cable is needed to reprogram the FPGA with a new bitstream.
We provide some additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses under written request.

[rebraist]

Originally Posted by Piru

Okay so with tax the price with be around 900 €, excluding all other required components. That is quite expensive for a product with partial OS support.

i'm not a morphos fan and i shall be happy the day all macs disintegrate.
But piru is totally right (now).
blessed the day that a new hw house will sell amiga one mboards to half the price and double the power...
and i continue to say: 2000 eur for an x1000 (in sheer power and "optionals") is less than 900 eur for a s460

[killer]

@M3x

thanks for the infos

[tone007]

Originally Posted by rebraist

blessed the day that a new hw house will sell amiga one mboards to half the price and double the power...

No, a quarter of the price and four times the power, complete with a first-class relic of Jay Miner affixed to the board!

[Piru]

Originally Posted by m3x

Where I said we don't release any documentation about the FPGA ?
What an interested developer needs to use the XP/XP2 FPGA is already on LatticeSemi web site (tools, datasheet, application notes, IP etc..)
A LatticeSemi JTAG cable is needed to reprogram the FPGA with a new bitstream.

Does this mean that FPGA cannot be reprogrammed with the CPU? Anyone wanting to install new programming such as amiga chipset emulation needs to buy such JTAG cable? How much is it? Ah to answer myself: HW-USBN-2A, $149 USD, 139 € in some european shop.

We provide some additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses under written request.

Hmm wait. You're saying that all the current programming on the FPGA can be overwritten or that the current program can be downloaded from LatticeSemi website? I thought the board would be bricked if the original programming was overwritten.

How much of the original FPGA space is available for user programs?

[m3x]

Originally Posted by Piru

Does this mean that FPGA cannot be reprogrammed with the CPU? Anyone wanting to install new programming such as amiga chipset emulation needs to buy such JTAG cable? How much is it? Ah to answer myself: HW-USBN-2A, $149 USD, 139 € in some european shop.

The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.

Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..

Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.

I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.

Originally Posted by Piru

Hmm wait. You're saying that all the current programming on the FPGA can be overwritten or that the current program can be downloaded from LatticeSemi website? I thought the board would be bricked if the original programming was overwritten.

No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.

[Piru]

Originally Posted by m3x

The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.

...

Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.

I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.

Ok that sounds sensible.

No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.

Fair enough.

Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..

Hmm. So would solution like this be isolated from the rest of the system or would it be possible to use keyboard, mouse etc connected to SAM 4x0 for input? Would it be possible to read/write data from host HDD(s)? Would it be possible to have the graphics output in a window? Assuming integration at this level is possible then it could be worth the effort.

[Cass]

Originally Posted by m3x
The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.

...

Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.

I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.

Ok that sounds sensible.

Quote:No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.

Fair enough.

Sounds very promising / intriguing !

[mbrantley]

Originally Posted by m3x

Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..

Did you just say "AGA"? Sounds very intriguing. Even integrated ECS hardware support would be way cool.

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by m3x

The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.

Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..

Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.

I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.
No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.

thanks for the info m3x! looking forward to playing with the FPGA..sounds cool

[JJ]

Originally Posted by mbrantley

Did you just say "AGA"? Sounds very intriguing. Even integrated ECS hardware support would be way cool.

What would be the point, dont say for running classic games from AOS4, because that as far as I can work out, and I could be wrong, would not be feasible/worth the effort

[m3x]

Originally Posted by Piru

Hmm. So would solution like this be isolated from the rest of the system or would it be possible to use keyboard, mouse etc connected to SAM 4x0 for input? Would it be possible to read/write data from host HDD(s)? Would it be possible to have the graphics output in a window? Assuming integration at this level is possible then it could be worth the effort.

On both 440 and 460 boards the FPGA is connected to a PPC local bus (EBC, 16 bit wide) and have 4 MB addressing space available.

Currently the FPGA is mapped at address 0xFF000000 on the 440 and 0x4 FF000000 on the 460 (the 460 has 36 bit physical addressing space)
The base address may be modified by changing one register on the 440/460 cpu.

The FPGA may act as master on the EBC bus and transfer data to/from any location in main ram (maybe using DMA too, need to check if it's possible on the PLB3 bus)

Basically it's possible to reach a high level of integration, with a deep knowledge of the 440 architecture.

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by JJ

What would be the point, dont say for running classic games from AOS4, because that as far as I can work out, and I could be wrong, would not be feasible/worth the effort

I already run classic AGA games using glUAE by saimo or even RunInUAE by ChrisH so I'm sure the FPGA could be used for alot more interesting things