6502.org Forum  Projects  Code  Documents  Tools  Forum
It is currently Sat Nov 23, 2024 3:55 am

All times are UTC




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 73 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:37 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:28 pm
Posts: 10986
Location: England
Would that be this article from August 1982? (That's the Logo issue.)
"High-Resolution Sprite-Oriented Color Graphics" by Steve Ciarcia

Looks good!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:40 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:07 am
Posts: 1250
Location: Soddy-Daisy, TN USA
That's it. :-D

_________________
Cat; the other white meat.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 9:17 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:34 pm
Posts: 62
Actually at this moment I need simple examples just to test the display. I've hooked up the sram interface and simple test of writing to and reading from vram has failed at the moment. I should check the wiring on the breadboard.

But for the future of course it would be more than fine to have some kind of commented sources :) The ones from datasheet are like gibberish since coded in tms assembly.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:25 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:43 pm
Posts: 258
Location: Southampton, UK
i_r_on wrote:
Actually at this moment I need simple examples just to test the display. I've hooked up the sram interface and simple test of writing to and reading from vram has failed at the moment. I should check the wiring on the breadboard.


SRAM interface? Have you got the schematic handy? I find using DRAMs easy enough, so haven't been that motivated to see how it's done. Curious though. :)

I've not used the 9918, but I would guess it is similar to the 9938/9958. From the datasheet it looks broadly the same but simpler due to only supporting 32KB? of DRAM, less video modes etc. Start with a routine to write to an arbitrary register; two bytes on A0=1, first byte is the value second byte is the register, with bits 10000CBA, where C B A is the register "address". Another routine to read the status register might be useful.

Then you'll want two routines, one to read and one to write to the VRAM. I wouldn't even bother to hook up a TV until this is working. Actually, I'd probably get this working before doing the register reading and writing.

Good luck. :)

_________________
8 bit fun and games: https://www.aslak.net/


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:44 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:07 am
Posts: 1250
Location: Soddy-Daisy, TN USA
For those that are interested, I uploaded all of my PDF files for the various TMS9918 chips. Including one that tells you how to replace the DRAM with an SRAM.

https://github.com/cbmeeks/TMS9918

_________________
Cat; the other white meat.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:50 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:28 pm
Posts: 10986
Location: England
Thanks for doing that!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:53 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:07 am
Posts: 1250
Location: Soddy-Daisy, TN USA
Share the wealth is what I always say. ;-)

_________________
Cat; the other white meat.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 7:20 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:34 pm
Posts: 62
@Aslak3 : Sram interface is in the link below.

http://retrobrewcomputers.org/n8vem-pbw ... 20VRAM.pdf

The issue with DRAMs is they are hard to be found and eight 4116 chips are needed. Another issue is 4116 chips need -5V and -12V power rails. First I thought I could get away with 4416 chips but those chips are not compatible with TMS VDC. TMS needs separate unidirectional bus on the DRAM chip since it's VRAM interface is not bidirectional. 4116 chips have input D and output Q separately where as 4416 chips have them together.

9918 and it's variants supports 4K or 16K ram. 9958 is much more complicated chip but I guess it's software compatible with 9918.

Actually I already wrote the arduino code to interface to the chip. It's somewhat working but has issues somehow. I need to check the connections.

One question comes to mind, Is A14..A0 in the address setup phase, are those too inverse to standard notation? A0 is MSB and A14 is LSB?

Here is the code I use to interface to the chip

Code:
#define MODE 2
#define CSW 3
#define CSR 8
#define RESET 9
 
 
#define PORT_MANIPULATION

int bytePins[8] =   { 14, 15 , 16, 17, 4, 5, 6, 7 };

void setDBReadMode() {
  #ifdef PORT_MANIPULATION
  DDRD = DDRD & B00001111; // Set Pin 4..7 as inputs. High nibble of databus.
  DDRC = DDRC & B11110000; // Set Analog pin 0..3 as inputs     
  #else
  for (int i=0;i<8;i++) {
    pinMode(bytePins[i], INPUT);
  }
  #endif
}

void setDBWriteMode() {
  #ifdef PORT_MANIPULATION 
  DDRD = DDRD | B11110000; // Set Pin 4..7 as outputs. High nibble of databus.
  DDRC = DDRC | B00001111; // Set Analog pin 0..3 as outputs
  #else
  for (int i=0;i<8;i++) {
    pinMode(bytePins[i], OUTPUT);
  } 
  #endif
}

void reset() {
  Serial.println("Resetting");
  digitalWrite(RESET, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(100);
  digitalWrite(RESET, LOW);
  delayMicroseconds(5); 
  digitalWrite(RESET, HIGH);
}

inline void setPort(unsigned char value) {
    #ifdef PORT_MANIPULATION
    PORTD = (PIND & 0x0F) | (value & 0xF0);
    PORTC = (PINC & 0xF0) | (value & 0x0F);
    #else
    unsigned char mask = 1;
    for (int i=0;i<8;i++) {
      digitalWrite(bytePins[i], value & mask);
      mask = mask<<1;
    }   
    #endif   
}

inline unsigned char readPort() {
    unsigned char memByte = 0;   
    #ifdef PORT_MANIPULATION
    memByte  = (PIND & 0xF0) | (PINC & 0x0F);
    #else
    unsigned char mask = 1;
    for (int i=0;i<8;i++) {
      if (digitalRead(bytePins[i])) {
        memByte = memByte | mask;
      }
      mask = mask<<1;
    }       
    #endif 
   
    return memByte;
}

//Writes a byte to databus for register access
void writeByte( unsigned char value) { 
    setDBWriteMode();
    setPort(value);
    digitalWrite(MODE, HIGH);       
    digitalWrite(CSW, LOW);           
    delayMicroseconds(10);
    digitalWrite(CSW, HIGH);
    setDBReadMode();
}

//Reads a byte from databus for register access
unsigned char  readByte( ) {
    unsigned char memByte = 0;
    digitalWrite(MODE, HIGH);           
    digitalWrite(CSR, LOW);       
    delayMicroseconds(10);
    memByte = readPort();
    digitalWrite(CSR, HIGH);
    return memByte;
}

//Writes a byte to databus for vram access
void writeByteToVRAM( unsigned char value) { 
    setDBWriteMode();
    setPort(value);
    digitalWrite(MODE, LOW);       
    digitalWrite(CSW, LOW);           
    delayMicroseconds(10);
    digitalWrite(CSW, HIGH);
    setDBReadMode();
}

//Reads a byte from databus for vram access
unsigned char  readByteFromVRAM( ) {
    unsigned char memByte = 0;
    digitalWrite(MODE, LOW);           
    digitalWrite(CSR, LOW);       
    delayMicroseconds(8);
    memByte = readPort();
    digitalWrite(CSR, HIGH);
    return memByte;
}

void setRegister(unsigned char registerIndex, unsigned char value) {
  writeByte(value);
  writeByte(0x80 | registerIndex); 
}

void setWriteAddress( unsigned int address) {
  writeByte((address & 0xFFC0)>>6);
  writeByte(0x40 | (address & 0x3F)); 
}

void setReadAddress( unsigned int address) {
  writeByte((address & 0xFFC0)>>6);
  writeByte((address & 0x3F)); 
}

void setup() {
  setDBReadMode();
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(MODE, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(RESET, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CSW, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CSR, OUTPUT); 
 
  digitalWrite(RESET, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(MODE, HIGH); 
  digitalWrite(CSW, HIGH);   
  digitalWrite(CSR, HIGH); 

  reset();
  delay(2000);

  setRegister(0, 0);
  setRegister(1, 0xD0);
  setRegister(7, 0x56); 
 
  Serial.println("Clearing RAM");
  setWriteAddress(0);
  for (int i = 0;i<16384;i++) {
    writeByteToVRAM(0);
  }
  Serial.println("RAM Cleared, testing"); 
  setWriteAddress(0);
  for (int i = 0;i<256;i++) {
    writeByteToVRAM(i);
  }
  setReadAddress(0);
  for (int i = 0;i<256;i++) {
    unsigned char value = readByteFromVRAM();
    Serial.println(value);
  }
}

void loop() {
 
}


@cbmeeks : Thanks for the documents!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:35 pm 
Offline

Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:36 am
Posts: 102
Location: UK
Hi - interesting to read through your code. It looks ok with me when mentally converting to 6502 assembly and then checking against my own routines. So what is not working? The A0..A13 are in normal LSB to MSB format (i.e. A0 is LSB), so it is as you have it.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2015 7:02 am 
Offline

Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:34 pm
Posts: 62
It once worked for writing and reading 256 bytes to/from address 0. Now the screen just goes fuzzy. Maybe it's the chip that's problematic (cheap $2 one from aliexpress), maybe connections, maybe the timing of the parts that I'm using for SRAM interface (74HC04, 74LS474)

I'm using breadboard at the moment. I need to do convert the circuit in the breadboard into the apartment design I use for the sid player to not deal with connection issues anymore.

Image


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 2:30 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:07 am
Posts: 1250
Location: Soddy-Daisy, TN USA
i_r_on wrote:
I need to do convert the circuit in the breadboard into the apartment design I use for the sid player to not deal with connection issues anymore.


Can you talk about that a little more? I had a similar idea on creating some standard modules for various chips that I could just stack. Like the shields in Arduino land.

_________________
Cat; the other white meat.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:30 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:04 pm
Posts: 82
Location: Munich, Germany
Hi there,

now thats an interesting thread. Exactly what we would have needed about one and a half years ago when my buddy and we were grinding our teeth on getting the 9929 to play with the 65c02.
Meanwhile, we went with the approach described in the BYTE-Article for hooking it up to the CPU bus, and also used that SRAM-replacement-circuit that everyone seems to be recommending. Also an YUV to RGB converter-circuit (not sure were we found that one) so the Steckschwein outputs RGB+CSync.

Schematics here: http://wordpress.steckschwein.de/wordpr ... d.sch_.svg

We are driving this with a CPU clock of 4MHz with no problems. Datasheets say we are pretty much out of spec, but the 9929 seems to be rather tolerant.
We are also using NOPs to accommodate the delays needed by the 9929.

This works well enough to be able to play a small game (sorry, site in german):
http://www.steckschwein.de/index.php/20 ... -entsteht/

Cheers,
ArnoldLayne


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 7:23 pm 
Offline

Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:34 pm
Posts: 62
@cbmeeks : I started that project last year and all the details can be found on a Turkish retro forum. Sorry it's all Turkish. I thought I would write a blog series about the project but haven't got much time to do it.
http://www.commodore.gen.tr/forum/index ... pic=9562.0

The blocks in the photo makes up a small 6502 system. It's the equivalent of the circuit on breadboard underneath it. The magic is the long pin female headers so that they can be stacked on top of each other. I brought all of the 6502's pins to the female headers. Chip select signals for each layer is routed through headers on the left.

From left to right,
- a swinsid (hardware that emulates c64's sound chip sid)
- 32k sram
- 32k eprom (of which I use only 256 bytes or so)
- 6502 itself

You can see it in action briefly here at the start of this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW5FI8Fg1Jc

By the way, I tried to do the same thing to use TMS9918 but that one failed because I need to put 3 latches and also SRAM chip on the same layer which defeats the purpose of this stacking.

ps: For reference, here is an example long female header : http://www.aliexpress.com/item/100PCS-2 ... 14708.html

@ArnoldLayne :

Thanks for the info, I'll dig it up when I find time to switch back to the TMS9918 project. I need to do some soldering stuff for my prototype board before I can continue.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 9:55 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:07 am
Posts: 1250
Location: Soddy-Daisy, TN USA
@i_r_on:

Awesome. Yeah, like I said...we had the same idea. I've thought about building something similar. I thought about even having a PCB made for such modules. Shouldn't be too expensive.

If anyone has more TMS documentation then please let me know. I'd like to add it to my collection.

https://github.com/cbmeeks/TMS9918

Thanks

_________________
Cat; the other white meat.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 10:50 am 
Offline

Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:36 am
Posts: 102
Location: UK
Hi all. This is a really interesting thread. I have been intrigued to know that there has been success in interfacing the 6502 @ 4Mhz to the TMS without any obivous problems. Currently my machine is running @ 2.7Mhz - the limiting factor is my AMD6551 ACIA. I have a WDC 6551 which will run at higher clock speeds, but will need to update my software to work around the serial bug. So for the moment will stay @ 2.7Mhz.

However, I have documented some of my video interfacing in the following log:

https://hackaday.io/project/5789-6502-h ... deo-output

Hope that helps.

Cheers.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 73 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5  Next

All times are UTC


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 41 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: