Quote:

kolla wrote: If your question really is if one can boot a bare bone Minimig system from a floppy with Pinball Dreams and play straight away without having to add any driver stack, ...

Well most FPGA Amigaoid can't handle floppies, especially Amiga floppies.
You have to store the 'Amiga Floppy' as ADF somewhere in the flash of the system.

More might be possible, f.e. Drawbridge or other software driven Floppy controllers on MCU but developers are missing who would integrate this into a FPGA Amigaoid.

@OneTimer1

You should check AmiCube then

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Quote:

pixie wrote: You should check AmiCube then

Yes, AmiCube or A600GS / A1200NG can use drawbridge and thanks to the host OS a lot of other things.

But I was writing about FPGA systems, I don't think Emu68k is using AmiCube

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 06-May-2025 at 10:00 PM.
Last edited by OneTimer1 on 06-May-2025 at 09:59 PM.

Quote:

Karlos wrote: https://x.com/Claude1079/status/1878319994129223970 Phwoar.

Impressive!

@OneTimer1

Quote:

But I was writing about FPGA systems, I don't think Emu68k is using AmiCube

That sentence does not compute.

Anyways….

https://youtu.be/OAxe3ryDPwQ

But this is a sidetrack, this was about keyboard.

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@OneTimer1

What you're on? Amicube is FPGA, perhaps you're mistaken it because it has Ami on start so you think it must be another amikit product

Floppy on AmiCUBE FPGA
https://youtu.be/-ZFJR3nHQkY?si=CD_D04C2KdvfCi4V

Pistorm on AmiCUBE FPGA
https://youtu.be/0OF5KrYCVlQ?si=NTbOrR-MoK2Vilqx

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@OneTimer1

yes it is really impressive!

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@coder76

Quote:

Yes, you are right, and there is still a problem with this new hardware (USB/Ethernet), that it is not part of amiga custom chips. And therefore, cannot easily be used with OS turned off. In the SAGA chipset, for example, the USB mice and joysticks can still be accessed like the old hardware from $DFF000 address space and so do not require driver software or OS to work, which is very good. Although the HW support is more limited with this kind of system.

let me stop you right there… The TCP stack contains 5 software-based layers between the hardware and application layer. unless you want statically link a TCP/IP stack into your games… it’s not happening. USB stack contains a tree structure of sub driver, again unless you want to link it into your games. you be limited to basic default or limit number of drivers.

2. Data link = Mac addresses based protocol.
3. IP address
4. Transport (TCP, UDP, quality control)
5. Sesion (BSDSocket API / Sockets)
6. Presentation (SSH/HTML/RAST/SOPE/TELNET/FTP)

the only good reason to support most low-level stuff, is games… and poorly written programs. in this day and age, it does not make any other sense.

its already pretty stupid regarding hard drive support.. when none of devices are unable to work, but actually some games do not completely take over the computer, they only take over the cooper (Denice chip), an example of this is AMOS. cia.resource and misc.resource also allows programs to take over other hardware, without taking over everything. Alien bread 3d is an example of this.. I do not advise you to do any of this.. its bad practice and prevents games from running on AmigaOS4 and MorphOS.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-May-2025 at 07:42 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-May-2025 at 07:06 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote: @coder76 Quote: Yes, you are right, and there is still a problem with this new hardware (USB/Ethernet), that it is not part of amiga custom chips. And therefore, cannot easily be used with OS turned off. In the SAGA chipset, for example, the USB mice and joysticks can still be accessed like the old hardware from $DFF000 address space and so do not require driver software or OS to work, which is very good. Although the HW support is more limited with this kind of system. the only good reason to support most low-level stuff, is games… and poorly written programs. in this day and age, it does not make any other sense. its already pretty stupid regarding hard drive support.. when none of devices are unable to work, but actually some games do not completely take over the computer, they only take over the cooper (Denice chip), an example of this is AMOS. cia.resource also allows programs to take over other hardware, without taking over everything. Alien bread 3d is an example of this.. I do not advise you to do any of this.. its bad practice and prevents games from running on AmigaOS4 and MorphOS.

AGAIN? It was NOT a bad practice! It was perfectly "legal" and supported by Commodore!

I've also written an article to carefully and perfectly explain it, which it was supposed that you've read it...

Why you continue to spread lies?!?

@cdimauro

It was stupid even in Commmodore times.
I rememeber when I buy a1200. It was more than 30 yrs ago.
games don't use hdd and still load from floppy. It was really annoying.
On pc games loading super fast compared to Amiga. ootb.

Quote:

kolla wrote: Anyways…. https://youtu.be/OAxe3ryDPwQ

Impressive, I didn't knew someone did it.
Thnaks for correcting me.

Quote:

kolla wrote: But this is a sidetrack, this was about keyboard.

I thought the keyboard thing was brought up to address possible incompatibilities in the hardware.
Keyboard simulation should be easier than floppy, because floppy (when done absolute compatible) would need an emulation of Paula and especially the DMA from floppy into Chipram. Keyboard emulation/simulation is just about emulating a chip register and generating interrupts.

@pixie

Quote:

pixie wrote: @OneTimer1 What you're on? Amicube is FPGA, perhaps you're mistaken it ...

You are right and I was wrong, I have mistaken it with Amiberry, Amiberry could use Drawbridge, that's why I thought you might have been writing about it.

(AFAIK Amiberry is used in A600GS / A1200NG)

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 08-May-2025 at 08:33 AM.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: @cdimauro It was stupid even in Commmodore times.

That's because, and usual, you've no idea, at all, of what you're talking about.

At the time it was A NEED to squeeze the most from the limited hardware available.
Quote:

I rememeber when I buy a1200. It was more than 30 yrs ago. games don't use hdd and still load from floppy. It was really annoying.

And this was already the CD time.

You continue of talk of things that you don't know.

History is there for a purpose: contextualize.

Of course, almost all old games can't be executed from an hard drive. But NEW ones could, IF needed (e.g.: multi disk games).
However, and again, the context is important: HOW MANY AMIGA USERS HAD AN HARD DRIVE? NOT so many --> software houses are NOT interested on spending money supporting them.

There are also some technical reasons which I was covering on an article which I've started writing half a year ago. Maybe it's time to finish and publish it.
Quote:

On pc games loading super fast compared to Amiga. ootb.

Even many PC games worked only with floppies, and some of them with custom disk formats. And the reason was simple: hard drives weren't much widespread, because they were a luxury even for PC users.

Of course, when they become more common then games used them.

But, as I've said before, there are also technical reasons.

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @coder76 Quote: But can you tell me, how does the keyboard work in these FPGA boards, can you control it like the old Amiga keyboard, which uses CIA chips + interrupt to control the keyboard. https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/9e8e30844fe134dca54cea65f1bd38539dfc15ad/rtl/minimig/amiga_keyboard.v#L77 https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/9e8e30844fe134dca54cea65f1bd38539dfc15ad/rtl/minimig/ciaa.v#L24 https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/master/rtl/minimig/ciaa_ps2keyboard.v What do you reckon? If your question really is if one can boot a bare bone Minimig system from a floppy with Pinball Dreams and play straight away without having to add any driver stack, like Poseidon USB, then yes - of course!

Ok, seems to be in order then, there is written something about a simplified CIA implementation. Are there some standalone FPGA implementations of CIA chips around? Not that these chips are any good, they are infact very slow for 68k CPUs to access, but they are necessary for compatibility with old Amigas. I wish Commodore had come up with faster/better I/O chips for the Amigas from the beginning.

@OneTimer1

Quote:

OneTimer1 wrote: @coder76 Quote: coder76 wrote: ... as USB hardware can have different functionality than old Amiga mice and joysticks, like a scrollwheel, and more joystick buttons. In SAGA these have new HW registers 'Mouse Wheel' and joybuttons1-4. Most FPGA Systems don't provide a real USB system that could be used by AmigaOS. If someone would ask me to make a FPGA Amiga that could use USB keyboards, mice and joysticks I would use a cheap MCU with an OpenSource USB stack it would handle HDMI devices and copy the inputs into some registers compatible with Amiga hardware.

The SAGA chipset seems to support new USB hardware in a native way, and integrates these into the custom chip address space, so you can use them easily. Although this has some limitations, not all USB keyboards and mice work.

@coder76

Quote:

coder76 wrote: @kolla Quote: kolla wrote: @coder76 https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/9e8e30844fe134dca54cea65f1bd38539dfc15ad/rtl/minimig/amiga_keyboard.v#L77 https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/9e8e30844fe134dca54cea65f1bd38539dfc15ad/rtl/minimig/ciaa.v#L24 https://github.com/minimig-dev/MinimigAGA-MiST-TC64/blob/master/rtl/minimig/ciaa_ps2keyboard.v What do you reckon? If your question really is if one can boot a bare bone Minimig system from a floppy with Pinball Dreams and play straight away without having to add any driver stack, like Poseidon USB, then yes - of course! Ok, seems to be in order then, there is written something about a simplified CIA implementation. Are there some standalone FPGA implementations of CIA chips around?

All FPGA cores which emulates the Amiga chipset have them implemented.
Quote:

Not that these chips are any good, they are infact very slow for 68k CPUs to access, but they are necessary for compatibility with old Amigas. I wish Commodore had come up with faster/better I/O chips for the Amigas from the beginning.

They were just I/O chips. I don't see the problems with them being so slow, for what they do.
Quote:

coder76 wrote: The SAGA chipset seems to support new USB hardware in a native way, and integrates these into the custom chip address space, so you can use them easily. Although this has some limitations, not all USB keyboards and mice work.

Because every vendor of USB devices can map the same components (digital axis, analog axis, buttons, scroll wheel, etc.) in a different way --> THEIR driver is needed.

It sucks, but that's the sad (sadic) reality...

@coder76

CIAA/CIAB chips were first developed for the C64, these are 8bit chips, they are basic counters, that can be daisy chained. Where two of counters can cooperate. Some of the timers are already used by the OS, because its 8bit chip connected to 16bit bus, it skips a bit, this is why all registers are even addresses. (this why it’s a slow chip I guess)

Now if you implement it in a FPGA, the FPGA can’t inheritance the slow level switching, the bus speed limits are removed. But it is the same old logic.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 10-May-2025 at 12:46 PM.

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@cdimauro

Quote:

They were just I/O chips. I don't see the problems with them being so slow, for what they do.

becouse of read / write speeds.
(Better pression when busy looping, checking flags, but it can also cause some timing issues, if it does not behave as expected)

I agree that higher frequency times probably won’t make any sense.
Considering requirements of the software.

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@coder76

Quote:

The SAGA chipset seems to support new USB hardware in a native way

I don't know what do you mean with 'native way', IMHO SAGA can only read USB HMI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_human_interface_device_class ) devices and present the data as it would have provided by the Amiga chip set.

Drivers for mass memory, cameras, scanner or other USB hardware are missing and I never heard about existing drivers supporting it.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 10-May-2025 at 05:30 PM.
Last edited by OneTimer1 on 10-May-2025 at 04:16 PM.

@OneTimer1

Quote:

OneTimer1 wrote: @coder76 Quote: The SAGA chipset seems to support new USB hardware in a native way I don't know what do you mean with 'native way', IMHO SAGA can only read USB HMI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_human_interface_device_class ) devices and present the data as it would have provided by the Amiga chip set. Drivers for mass memory, cameras, scanner or other USB hardware are missing and I never heard about existing drivers supporting it.

Yes, you are correct, there is USB support for only mice and joystick in SAGA. And keyboard is somehow mapped to work like an old Amiga keyboard, but all USB keyboards do not work. Other USB hardware would be more difficult to support indeed. With 'native' I mean that HW is integrated into custom chip memory area and usable from there. Like old disk drive, mouse and joystick, serial & parallel port.

But this is the Amiga way of dealing with external hardware, and needs to be thought about in new Amiga chipsets, how to get it all to work (if possible).