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Teaser : SAGA PLANAR AMIGA Modespage  1 2 3 4 5 

Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
20 Mar 2017 15:50


Thierry Atheist wrote:

  - 64 Megs ChipRAM and 64 Megs FastRAM on the Vampire itself
 


Chip not belong to the vampire, but to board. Without move whole Amiga Chipset to FPGA You cannot touch ChipRAM



Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
20 Mar 2017 15:54


eric gus wrote:
 
    I could easily give up the custom chips doing the work if it gives my NTSC ONLY (no PAL display ability)  512kb chip ram {max} A500 , PAL display modes and 2mb chip ram.. its something I could easily live with to have the FPGA completely replace the functions of the original chips if the FPGA can provide more options things the original chips are unable to perform.  I would accept this as a fair tradeoff.
 

 
  So, in my opinion, You should wait for standalone board, whitch will contain whole original Amiga architecture with rest of addictional features. Building OCS/ECS iside OCS/ECS machine is useless, mayby for test purpose before standalone board. You can easly expand Chip to  1MB or even more for A500+. There is no any existing software whitch will use more than 2MB of Chip.


David Wright

Posts 373
20 Mar 2017 17:51


I was on my 1200 the other day working in Personal paint with a hires screen (Indivision). I tried to load a picture and was told it couldn't because of no chip ram available.
My Vampire should be arriving soon so I hope with the RTG aspects this won't be an issue anymore.

Also with Deluxe Paint V and a 1084 by 720 (or whatever that number is) resolution it is painfully slow. Hoping to do a lot more with Vampire.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
20 Mar 2017 18:50


Michal Warzecha wrote:

eric gus wrote:
 
      I could easily give up the custom chips doing the work if it gives my NTSC ONLY (no PAL display ability)  512kb chip ram {max} A500 , PAL display modes and 2mb chip ram.. its something I could easily live with to have the FPGA completely replace the functions of the original chips if the FPGA can provide more options things the original chips are unable to perform.  I would accept this as a fair tradeoff.
 

 
  So, in my opinion, You should wait for standalone board, whitch will contain whole original Amiga architecture with rest of addictional features. Building OCS/ECS iside OCS/ECS machine is useless, mayby for test purpose before standalone board. You can easly expand Chip to  1MB or even more for A500+. There is no any existing software whitch will use more than 2MB of Chip.

Well I dont have an A500+ so that wont happen easily, just an original A500 NTSC 521kb chip system  ..  and I also have a MiST FPGA so in essence I already have a standalone FPGA Amiga system, The only thing what would be interesting is if the standalone Vampire also has the same legacy I/O ports as an original Amiga, joystick, serial/parallel, external disk ports etc.. otherwise whats the point (other than the nice faster cpu) .. if you are going to go thru the effort to make a standalone FPGA amiga system you need to make it so all older legacy devices like midi sequencers and parallel port audio/video digitizers work as well as disk drives for folks who want to archive their disks or just use original disks.  In effect, a standalone vampire should be for more than just playing retro games, but a whole and complete Amiga replacement (ala the c64 reloaded).. There is no point in just making a little FPGA board with two 9 pin joystick ports on it, we already have the MiST, MiniMig and the FPGA Arcade, it should differentiate itself amongst those other systems.



Mo Retro

Posts 241
20 Mar 2017 19:54


eric gus wrote:

  The only thing what would be interesting is if the standalone Vampire also has the same legacy I/O ports as an original Amiga, joystick, serial/parallel, external disk ports etc.. otherwise whats the point (other than the nice faster cpu) .. if you are going to go thru the effort to make a standalone FPGA amiga system you need to make it so all older legacy devices like midi sequencers and parallel port audio/video digitizers work as well as disk drives for folks who want to archive their disks or just use original disks.  In effect, a standalone vampire should be for more than just playing retro games, but a whole and complete Amiga replacement (ala the c64 reloaded).. There is no point in just making a little FPGA board with two 9 pin joystick ports on it, we already have the MiST, MiniMig and the FPGA Arcade, it should differentiate itself amongst those other systems.

Read this the 11th post of Gunnar in this thread :)
CLICK HERE


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
20 Mar 2017 20:50


As You can see, Eric, standalone board will probably have all Amiga I/O ports. Of course it will increase board price, but who care :)
Of course probably not everything will work at start, but it's FPGA and thy're Apollo team, so, everything will be ok :D


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
21 Mar 2017 02:28


Mo Retro wrote:
Read this the 11th post of Gunnar in this thread :)
CLICK HERE 

Oh that Gunnar....

So very, very modest.

(hint: there's way more to it than that)


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
21 Mar 2017 02:31


Michal Warzecha wrote:
Of course it will increase board price, but who care :)

Anyone would be a FOOL not to buy it. What if production seized up after the first big run?

I'm not missing THAT BOAT!!!


Nixus Minimax

Posts 416
21 Mar 2017 08:59


I'd be surprised if the stand-alone included all legacy ports in its basic configuration. Who really needs bulky serial and parallel ports today? A tiny fraction of all users. There might be expansions for the Vampire's expansion ports, though.


Roman S.

Posts 149
21 Mar 2017 13:05


Those wishing to have a printer connected to their Amiga (parallel) and programmers wanting to do remote debugging (serial).


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
21 Mar 2017 13:09


Roman S. wrote:

  Those wishing to have a printer connected to their Amiga (parallel) and programmers wanting to do remote debugging (serial).
 

 
Yes 30 years ago you did connect Printers with parallel.
But its not 1980 anymore.
 
Today you can transmit serial over USB.
And today you connect printers with USB.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
21 Mar 2017 15:51


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Roman S. wrote:

    Those wishing to have a printer connected to their Amiga (parallel) and programmers wanting to do remote debugging (serial).
 

 
  Yes 30 years ago you did connect Printers with parallel.
  But its not 1980 anymore.
   
  Today you can transmit serial over USB.
  And today you connect printers with USB.

True..

But what if I want to use something like a video or audio capture device that requires those ports, say an old legacy device like DIGI VIEW, or a DCTV capture/display device?, Perfect Audio?.. uh-oh .. that wont work, those need a real parallel port on the amiga.. ok how about an amiga Midi serial device .. need a serial port for that.. granted some things you can probably get away with a USB adaptor but to my point, if you are going for a "whole amiga replacement", you need to be able to replace "the whole amiga" legacy ports and all (or provide means to connect legacy I/O port devices).

Need to think beyond just simple old printers and such, people do much more with their Amiga's then play retro games.


David Wright

Posts 373
21 Mar 2017 17:35


You and maybe five other people. That is not how to build for the masses.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
21 Mar 2017 17:48


eric gus wrote:

  granted some things you can probably get away with a USB adaptor but to my point, if you are going for a "whole amiga replacement", you need to be able to replace "the whole amiga" legacy ports and all (or provide means to connect legacy I/O port devices).

Our goal is to provide a great AMIGA for a good price to the masses.
We do NOT want to create something overpriced.
The segment of overpriced HW is filled already by the PPC.

Adding stuff like parallel port which is used only by few,
would increase the price for many.
This would not be fair.

 


Philippe Flype
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 299
21 Mar 2017 18:40


I have done some testings with Gunnar about planar modes in core.

Video that shows some of the work done (planar mode supports, and dma native chipset cloning on to the vampire video output, all cpu free except some init/params code).

EXTERNAL LINK


Michael R

Posts 281
21 Mar 2017 19:07


Since the topic is "Teaser" or "Coming Soon" then we should imagine what is yet to come, and while we are dreaming of the future it would be nice to envision what the Apollo Core & Vampire V2 could become, such as a standalone motherboard design. What would it be called? Perhaps a name that would leave a lasting impression. The recent Flame Demos associated with the Vampire may give a clue. Maybe a name like "Phoenix" or "Firebird" that rises from the ashes like the Amiga itself?
 
  So let's imagine what the standalone motherboard would look like.
  Starting on the left side where an A1200 power connector would be
  is a new laptop power jack so we can finally get rid of the Amiga
  power brick that's about the size of a real brick! To the right of
  that is an Ethernet port for Cat5/Cat6 but that's optional. we can
  use USB wireless as well. But next to that should be at least four
  stacked USB ports. Then next to that would be VGA/DVI/DIGITAL-VIDEO ports.
  Next would be Audio jacks then Amiga legacy ports such as Serial,
  Mouse, Joystick. There might also be a PS2 Combo (green/purple)
  for mouse + keyboard which is also optional. We could use USB.
 
  As for the board interior: one or more SODIMM or DIMM for added
  RAM. One or two SATA for future expansion, and a Fast IDE for those
  CF readers + SD card readers we all have. Additionally it would be
  nice if it would fit in an old A1200 case, or one of the new A1200
  cases being designed. I'd like mine in shiny white please! As such
  it should have an A1200 keyboard connector on the motherboard.
 
  AS for the Super-AGA maybe it would be possible to separate the
  Flash Software into two sets: CPU + FPU and SAGA Chipset. In that
  case there would be an FPGA chip in the center of the new board
  that would contain the SAGA chipset itself allowing the addition
  of an A1200-style accelerator edge connector that would accept
  existing A1200 accelerators and vampire cards that could be
  re-flashed with just the CPU + FPU code. So with the A1200 edge
  connector we could perhaps use any A1200 accelerator even the
  ACA cards At 25MHz, 50MHz, 100MHz or a Vampire V2 accelerator card.
  If we already own a vampire V2 card why buy another one? Just plug
  it in to the board.
 
  The individuals at Indi-something are working on something similar
  but their design seems incomplete, lacking several key elements.
  They chose to use costly custom chips rather than FPGA and key
  components are missing such as Fast IDE, Ethernet, SATA, & USB.
  It's like the competition in the early days between Atari & Amiga.
  It's not a true competition though. The Apollo Team pulls farther
  ahead with each new iteration of the Apollo Core! What major advantage
  would the Apollo Team have over their competitors? They will have the
  Apollo Core (CPU + FPU) and the SAGA chipset. Without that the standalone
  motherboard would be just another motherboard with an FPGA and a few
  odd connectors. It's the Super-AGA chipset that makes it an Amiga!
 
  This is a Wish List so let's continue.
  If SAGA means Enhanced AGA then maybe there will be a floppy
  connector on the board that attaches to a PC floppy drive that
  through the SAGA chipset could read any know disk format
  including Classic Amiga disks! The SAGA chipset may also
  contain some of the best elements of other Amiga chipsets
  such as "Hombre" or "AAA". As such it would truly become
  "Super-AGA"! And if the Apollo Team can do all this, they
  will have achieved what no one else has done! The will have
  created the "Super-AGA Chipset". That alone would be an
  incredible accomplishment. (Anything is possible!)
 
  "The future has arrived and it is Vampire!"


Michael R

Posts 281
21 Mar 2017 19:09


Hopefully all this wishful thinking won't make the standalone board overpriced. But the future with Vampire and the Apollo Core is going to be very interesting judging by the results thus far!


Michael R

Posts 281
21 Mar 2017 19:20


Thanks for the video link Philippe. The work done so far is very impressive!


Eric Gus

Posts 477
21 Mar 2017 20:39


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

eric gus wrote:

  granted some things you can probably get away with a USB adaptor but to my point, if you are going for a "whole amiga replacement", you need to be able to replace "the whole amiga" legacy ports and all (or provide means to connect legacy I/O port devices).
 

 
  Our goal is to provide a great AMIGA for a good price to the masses.
  We do NOT want to create something overpriced.
  The segment of overpriced HW is filled already by the PPC.
 
  Adding stuff like parallel port which is used only by few,
  would increase the price for many.
  This would not be fair.
 
 

Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised and it will be something that will make me want to give up my MiST!! ..

I will have faith and wait and see..

I just wanted to point out a few things that some people (and more than just five David) might be looking for with a standalone amiga replacement.  I'd love to see a vampire version of the mythological vapor "Amiga reloaded".  An FPGA based product which significantly differentiates itself other very very similar products that have come before it that have overlooked and missed a potential market due to their design shortcomings (like the FPGA Arcade and MiST) in a significant and meaningful way.



Eric Gus

Posts 477
21 Mar 2017 20:47


Michael R wrote:

Hopefully all this wishful thinking won't make the standalone board overpriced. But the future with Vampire and the Apollo Core is going to be very interesting judging by the results thus far!

Yes indeed.. I also hope its a motherboard type design that say would drop into those new A1200 cases..  I think you and I are on the same wavelength in terms of what our wishes are.

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