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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

V500 / V600 Gold 3 AGApage  1 2 3 4 

Adam A

Posts 130
13 Sep 2020 13:37


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  - Having more then GOLD2 current and one GOLD3 solution for V2 would be hard to maintain in development, this the team polls and discussion what to leave out

Yes, I think the v2 has reached its maximum potential. possibly a v4 500/600 in the future with cyclone 5?


Antony Coello

Posts 153
13 Sep 2020 14:10


So whats the flash cycle limit on a Cyclone 3?

Could it not be possible to orchestrate a boot option for different cores? (like I suggested half joking earlier, but it seems like everyone wants something different so maybe its the only viable option)

It could just boot fast with the current core, or give the option to flash a different one (which obviously takes a bit longer to boot then).


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
13 Sep 2020 21:12


Antony Coello wrote:
 
  It could just boot fast with the current core, or give the option to flash a different one (which obviously takes a bit longer to boot then).

Well, its probably possible, but it might likely cause a mess, since OS might expect or be configured for different - its better to leave it to knowledgeable user, then to make it "too easy".

Once AmigaOS EXE core flashes are out, its quite easy to "reflash", even Blasting is not that complex, once you get used to it.



Antony Coello

Posts 153
13 Sep 2020 23:11


Surely some sort of early autoboot config file can do this?

Ive not got my v500 working yet, so dont know how much of a PITA the reflash time would be.




Istvan Hegedus

Posts 22
17 Sep 2020 12:43


FPGAs use sram inside so their config can be overwritten any times without degrading. The problem is the flash chip which stores the code while the device is turned off. That has a limted lifecycle (write cycle).
  How I would do is to store different firmwares (e.g. CPU+AGA only, CPU+RTG+FPU only) on the amiga filesystem in a dedicated directory and write/modify the amiga early setup which is reachable during power on holding the two mouse buttons pressed. So the vampire would start up with the firmware which is on the flash chip and the user could change the firmware in the early setup. The ROM code would load the firmware directly to sram of the fpga. The change would not be resident so after turning the amiga off the firmware from the flash would be loaded again.
  The difficulty is however that the fpga could not load its own program while it is being reprogrammed so probably it is not possible without HW modification...


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
17 Sep 2020 14:02


Antony Coello wrote:

So whats the flash cycle limit on a Cyclone 3?

Impossible to reach in a lifetime. :-)




Antony Coello

Posts 153
17 Sep 2020 15:06


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
Antony Coello wrote:

    So whats the flash cycle limit on a Cyclone 3?
   

    Impossible to reach in a lifetime. :-)
   
   
 

 
 
  Ok, so Im not sure what sort of chaos has happened recently with the Facebook poll for what people want the Vampire 500/600 core to finally include (I dont use FB), but this, if written smoothly can be an option.
 
  Not sure how long a re-flash takes, but you could have various core builds with AGA/FPU/RTG/Whatever you like.
 
  Im starting to feel sorry for the V4SA>v2 backport guys. People are pulling in all directions, it seems. :)


CD32 Freak

Posts 25
17 Sep 2020 16:09


@Istvan Hegedus
What a brilliant idea to have a boot menu with the two mouse buttons just like a classic Amiga! :-)


Antony Coello

Posts 153
17 Sep 2020 16:17


Istvan Hegedus wrote:

  FPGAs use sram inside so their config can be overwritten any times without degrading. The problem is the flash chip which stores the code while the device is turned off. That has a limted lifecycle (write cycle).
    How I would do is to store different firmwares (e.g. CPU+AGA only, CPU+RTG+FPU only) on the amiga filesystem in a dedicated directory and write/modify the amiga early setup which is reachable during power on holding the two mouse buttons pressed. So the vampire would start up with the firmware which is on the flash chip and the user could change the firmware in the early setup. The ROM code would load the firmware directly to sram of the fpga. The change would not be resident so after turning the amiga off the firmware from the flash would be loaded again.
    The difficulty is however that the fpga could not load its own program while it is being reprogrammed so probably it is not possible without HW modification...
 

 
  Sorry, must have missed your post.
 
  This would be very much heading in the right direction. :)
 
  Im hoping somewhere along these lines we can find a good working solution.
 


Oliver Mohr

Posts 17
31 Mar 2021 13:30


Hello everybody!
Today I want to give Gold3 Alpha a try.
Is there anything special I have to pay attention for? Except from resolution-changing to 640x256 and deleting "overscan.prefs"?
Can I stay with Coffin R58, or do I have to install a different OS?

Thanks in advantage and many greetings
Oliver

P.S.: Will the disk drive really be without function?


Oliver Mohr

Posts 17
31 Mar 2021 22:53


Okay - I got it running, but it's no real joy ... perhaps I did something wrong,
I don't know. Coffin didn't start at all - only a weird yellow/blue flickering
screen. So I plugged in a CF-Card from my non vampired A500 with
OS 3.1.4 installed. After deactivating the CPU-Check in the startup-sequence
it started, but only I could only play about 10% of the AGA-Games. I
didn't try much longer and flashed back to core 2.12. I will wait until
perhaps the Core3 will be better developed for the V500 ... of course
it was nice to see the 256 colors ... let's see what comes in the future.

Good night to everyone
Oliver

P.S.: I write this of course on my Amiga ... ;-)


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
01 Apr 2021 18:36


Oliver Mohr wrote:

Okay - I got it running, but it's no real joy ... perhaps I did something wrong,
  I don't know. Coffin didn't start at all - only a weird yellow/blue flickering

Coffin is made with RTG and higher resolutions in mind - Plain OS 3.x with SAGA drivers. More apps work then games. Dont forget its nice to see more ChipRAM :)



Nick Fellows

Posts 176
01 Apr 2021 21:03


Would be interesting to see if it were possible to run it like a DRACO?

EXTERNAL LINK 
Which is amiga based but does not use the traditional chipset.


Raymond Stewart

Posts 1
29 Apr 2021 02:48


Maybe I’m crazy, but... the 68080 core is really powerful, yes? CPU, FPU, and RTG is really important. I want AGA too, but if it’s too big to fit, I get it. However, is there enough room to add the signaling that would allow soft-emulation of AGA to be practical? Let’s use some imagination.
RTG is better. The CPU is powerful enough. We need AGA for compatibility with games that were targeting 020 performance. We can spare the compute power.
AGA emulation may not work as a software only solution, but the gold core should give the latitude necessary to support AGA compatibility modes in RTG.

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