@cdimauro

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With TiNA we have 3 FPGAs (EP4CE30F23C8N or EP4CE30F23C6N; still deciding) with a lot of pins and resources (29KB cells/LEs, 74KB "memory"), so, as you can think, we can do A LOT more than an A500 design.

Even more ambitious than Natami? Good luck!

@cdimauro

Will it be able to drive larger, full color windows? I.e. could I have a 1024x768, or bigger, full color workbench?

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JimS wrote: @cdimauro Quote: With TiNA we have 3 FPGAs (EP4CE30F23C8N or EP4CE30F23C6N; still deciding) with a lot of pins and resources (29KB cells/LEs, 74KB "memory"), so, as you can think, we can do A LOT more than an A500 design. What's the point of multiple FPGAs? Seems that one larger one would make more sense. It would be a lot simpler to route, and probably more reliable.

It was a decision of the team leader (and company owner). He said that prefers a 3 FPGAs solution, because the synthesize phase is simpler and faster, and having FPGAs for specific purposes (CPU, display+graphic, disk+audio+I/O+expansion) let to work to a single part to synthesize without touching the other FPGAs firmwares, in a faster and simpler way to manage (albeit some sync problems that needs to be solved, of course; but it resembles the Amiga original chipset).

Having 3 FPGAs makes also available more resources in possible future plans, but it's MUCH premature now.

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OlafS25 wrote: @cdimauro Good luck with your interesting project. If you manage to there will certainly be interest in the community.

I'm a team member, but not the project owner. Also, I'm not a VHDL guy, so I have a very limited role.

Anyway, the project will be interesting for the Amiga comunity if somebody will give an hand to reach goals sooner. It'll be open sourced, and we are absolutely open to contributions. Announcements will be made when the PCB is finalized.

Just to be clear, the company that is behind TiNA will use it for its industrial purposes, because it needs a board with the same features for some customers.
He doesn't want to make money selling the boards to amigans: the price will substantially cover the gross costs. So amigans can get a powerful hardware at a very good price. But the hardware needs a software to run, and for the dreamed SuperAmiga help is needed.

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pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: With TiNA we have 3 FPGAs (EP4CE30F23C8N or EP4CE30F23C6N; still deciding) with a lot of pins and resources (29KB cells/LEs, 74KB "memory"), so, as you can think, we can do A LOT more than an A500 design. Even more ambitious than Natami? Good luck!

We need a lot.

The hardware is far more powerful. But, as I said, without a proper software (firmware, AmigaOS patches, AROS 68K) it's useless...

@cdimauro

Sound like a good project. Good luck!

Where can i get info on how this project started ?

What is the design goal, target price,target volume.

where did the name come from, who made the name ?

I hope we can see production this year!

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NomadOfNorad wrote: @cdimauro Will it be able to drive larger, full color windows? I.e. could I have a 1024x768, or bigger, full color workbench?

Absolutely. We have at least 3GB/s (but we are working to get MUCH more) memory bandwidth, so FullHD (1920x1080) at 60Hz and 32-bit color is a reachable goal.

Consider that the display logic requires a bit less than 500MB/s to display such screen, so we have more than 5 times (at least) this quantity that we can use to draw graphics, making very rich games or moving Worbench/application windows smoother.

However, we need to implement 32-bit chunky pixel modes to get this. Some work to do (firmware, patches to the o.s., proper Picasso'96 or similar drivers). So we need help if we want to achieve this goal (and many other) sooner.

P.S. The board will support 256MB to 1GB ram (unified; "chip" mem). May be 2 or 4GB, but it's not confirmed right now.

@cdimauro

Good work and I wish you much success with your proyect and the people like the Amiga Classic buy your boards, although always will be people that say the typical phrase " is very expensive" or "no is Amiga", etc., only is Amiga when is free or low cost......

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asymetrix wrote: @cdimauro Sound like a good project. Good luck! Where can i get info on how this project started ?

Here.

It was an Italian discussion.
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What is the design goal, target price,target volume.

First A500. Then Amiga 1200. Then a super Amiga.
About 300€.
The volume depends on the requests. The company has his own motherboards to manifacture to his customers, so motherboards will be produced each month. Amigans requests can be served as well.
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where did the name come from, who made the name ?

You'll find all in the link above.
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I hope we can see production this year!

The motherboard will be produced sooner. But the first goal is an Amiga 500 up and running, as I said. After this there'll be work to add 1200 support. And then... a SuperAmiga.

But there's A LOT of work, as you can think, and help is very welcomed from the Amiga community to reach goals sooner. On the other hand, we'll have an open project with a low price (just the gross production costs will be covered) that the community can use for his fun. Give an hand, contributing to the dream, and everybody will happy.

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Templario wrote: @cdimauro Good work and I wish you much success with your proyect and the people like the Amiga Classic buy your boards, although always will be people that say the typical phrase " is very expensive" or "no is Amiga", etc., only is Amiga when is free or low cost......

Thanks. TiNA is expensive if you compare it to the PC o something similar to a computer.

But you are buying a board with 3 programmable and powerful FPGAs, so you can use it to simulate other systems too (Atari, Archimedes, or even arcade boards), or as basis to play with VHDL for your own projects.

In the end, it's not a PC. You will not buy a computer. You have something that is completely different. Something that no PC will be able to emulate at full speed, once the more advanced goals will be reached (and there are a lot of ideas here).

Yes, it's expensive for an hobby. 300€ aren't 50 bucks. But are far below 1000, 2000, or even 3000€. I think that 300€ is a reachable and very good price, if you just think at the hardware that you'll bring at home, and what you can do with it.

@cdimauro

You mean a full board with USB, PCI, Network and so on. If yes then it is much cheaper than anything I read regarding Natami and even cheaper than the FPGA Arcade. So it would be not a good price, it would be a VERY good price. I am looking forward to your announcements.

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JimS wrote: What's the point of multiple FPGAs? Seems that one larger one would make more sense. It would be a lot simpler to route, and probably more reliable.

I like the idea of having multiple fpgas for safety and experimentation. I almost bought a C-One because it had multiple fpgas and good documentation for playing with but my research discovered that it had many hardware bugs and limitations that couldn't be fixed in fpga. I would love to find an open system running the AmigaOS in one fpga while I experiment with VHDL in another. The Minimig isn't quite good enough and the fpga Arcade isn't quite open enough. Maybe the Tina will be the answer ;).

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cdimauro wrote: Yes, it's expensive for an hobby. 300€ aren't 50 bucks. But are far below 1000, 2000, or even 3000€. I think that 300€ is a reachable and very good price, if you just think at the hardware that you'll bring at home, and what you can do with it.

Yes, that's an excellent price if it has Natami or fpga Arcade+expansion like capabilities. It takes a lot of time to write drivers though.

Last edited by matthey on 13-May-2013 at 12:59 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 13-May-2013 at 12:58 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 13-May-2013 at 12:50 AM.

I will quietly wait and see. Good luck all the same.

@cdimauro

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It was a decision of the team leader (and company owner). He said that prefers a 3 FPGAs solution, because the synthesize phase is simpler and faster, and having FPGAs for specific purposes (CPU, display+graphic, disk+audio+I/O+expansion) let to work to a single part to synthesize without touching the other FPGAs firmwares, in a faster and simpler way to manage (albeit some sync problems that needs to be solved, of course; but it resembles the Amiga original chipset).

Interesting.... of course if you consult the Ancient Lore of Amiga, it seems that Angus, Paula and Denise were supposed to be one chip, but the fab tech of the time wasn't up to it.

Anyway, Good luck with the project. I always like to see new players in the hardware arena.

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@matthey

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I like the idea of having multiple fpgas for safety and experimentation. I would love to find an open system running the AmigaOS in one fpga while I experiment with VHDL in another. The Minimig isn't quite good enough and the fpga Arcade isn't quite open enough. Maybe the Tina will be the answer ;).

I suppose, although it seems to me that having multiple FPGAs, all wanting access to the same RAM which is being controlled by one of them, seems like asking for trouble.

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JimS wrote: I suppose, although it seems to me that having multiple FPGAs, all wanting access to the same RAM which is being controlled by one of them, seems like asking for trouble.

Who said they had to use the same ram? That was the idea behind the chip and fast ram from the beginning. The CPU gets priority access to the fast ram and the custom chips get priority access to the chip ram. I think an fpga for the CPU and one for the custom chips is about optimum for development. Eventually, after testing and debugging, they should all become the same SoC ASIC though ;).

@cdimauro

Good luck with this... sounds like an interesting project...

I could get back into Amiga classic computing with the release of this product... Otherwise it would have been Natami... but it doesn't seem like it is going to be released anytime soon.

Q!

"i am home"

@matthey

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Who said they had to use the same ram? That was the idea behind the chip and fast ram from the beginning. The CPU gets priority access to the fast ram and the custom chips get priority access to the chip ram. I think an fpga for the CPU and one for the custom chips is about optimum for development. Eventually, after testing and debugging, they should all become the same SoC ASIC though ;).

The way i understood it, the interface between the SD or DDR RAM usually used on these things is so fast by comparison to the old 68k buss that there's no real hardware need to split the RAM into CHIP and FAST. Could be wrong... Anyway, the CPU FPGA has to have access to both, which means a whole lot of extra traces that need to be carefully routed. I'd prefer to keep everything in one chip... but I can see your point about having the cpu in one and the chips in another. Ya know.. the minimig port to the Altera DE2 board puts two 68000s and a Amiga chipset in one FPGA. The other 68k does the stuff that the ARM/PIC does on a minimig.

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It's got 32 bits and it uses them all. It's overclocked, watch the bouncing ball!

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OlafS25 wrote: @cdimauro You mean a full board with USB, PCI, Network and so on. If yes then it is much cheaper than anything I read regarding Natami and even cheaper than the FPGA Arcade. So it would be not a good price, it would be a VERY good price. I am looking forward to your announcements.

USB and Ethernet 10/100 are part of the project.
PCI is not, unfortunately, but there's an expasion port that "might" be used for this. I've to discuss something with the team leader.

I don't know how important is adding PCI support for a project like this. Amigas were "all-in-one" machines, and only some of them had Zorro slots.
My last PCs resembled it; the last video card that I bought was a Radeon 9600Pro, and a SoundBlaster AWE64 was the last sound card. In the last 8-9 years, my PCs were empty...

P.S. We'll support EIDE/PATA, because engineers had experience with it. But if someone can provide support for SATA, we can provide it from the beginning.

Last edited by cdimauro on 13-May-2013 at 08:11 AM.

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matthey wrote: Quote: JimS wrote: What's the point of multiple FPGAs? Seems that one larger one would make more sense. It would be a lot simpler to route, and probably more reliable. I like the idea of having multiple fpgas for safety and experimentation.

That was exactly the point of our team leader.
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I almost bought a C-One because it had multiple fpgas and good documentation for playing with but my research discovered that it had many hardware bugs and limitations that couldn't be fixed in fpga. I would love to find an open system running the AmigaOS in one fpga while I experiment with VHDL in another. The Minimig isn't quite good enough and the fpga Arcade isn't quite open enough. Maybe the Tina will be the answer ;).

We hope so.

I think that TiNA could be a useful and powerful platform even to whom that likes to enter the FPGA world in a safer way, with a solid project to use or look at.

FPGAs are intriguing...
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Quote: cdimauro wrote: Yes, it's expensive for an hobby. 300€ aren't 50 bucks. But are far below 1000, 2000, or even 3000€. I think that 300€ is a reachable and very good price, if you just think at the hardware that you'll bring at home, and what you can do with it. Yes, that's an excellent price if it has Natami or fpga Arcade+expansion like capabilities.

As I said above, we lack PCI, but there's an expansion port (I think that it's needed for the company, to control the customer systems).

I know that Altera provides FPGAs that add PCI-Express support, but frankly speaking I think that it's too much premature to look at this. A SuperAmiga is a very complex project itself...
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It takes a lot of time to write drivers though.

Yes, I know. But firmware requires much more effort.