Blog post series on Creating a C64 system on FPGA

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:20 pm

Hi All

I have started a blog series on creating a C64 system on an FPGA.

Here is the link:

http://c64onfpga.blogspot.co.za/2017/11 ... ction.html

Will keep you posted on new posts.

BigEd · Post by **BigEd** » Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:59 pm

Subscribed!

MicroCoreLabs · Post by **MicroCoreLabs** » Fri Nov 17, 2017 5:16 am

Looks like a cool project. Good Luck! You might consider adapting my MCL65 core which has passed all of the tests you described and was used to power a Commodore VIC-20, Atari-2600, and an Apple II+.

http://www.microcorelabs.com/mcl65.html

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Fri Nov 17, 2017 3:04 pm

Just published my next post. In this one I have decided to linger a bit on some Verilog basics, just to get everyone aboard:

http://c64onfpga.blogspot.co.za/2017/11 ... asics.html

Fatsie · Post by **Fatsie** » Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:38 pm

Link for FPGA implementation of a C64 by Peter Wendrich.
T65 is another 6502 core; it's VHDL though. I'm using it for my Retro-uC and have a fork on my gitlab.

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Sun Nov 19, 2017 1:17 pm

Hi Fatsie.

Thanks for the links. Very interesting project indeed.

One thing I am just curious about Wenrich's fpga implementation is that he mentions that the latest version he cannot release the source code because it contains source code from the Chameleon project.

Any idea what this project is about?

Cray Ze · Post by **Cray Ze** » Sun Nov 19, 2017 1:45 pm

Turbo Chameleon 64 is an Altera EP3C25 FPGA along with RAM, crammed into a C64 cartridge.
It was originally a VGA output cartridge, but was so overpowered that many other features came along.
It can run standalone without being connected to a C64, it can even run an Amiga core.

Lots'a'links.
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/produkt- ... on_64.html
http://www.syntiac.com/chameleon.html
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/Chameleon
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Turbo_Chameleon_64

And a video of it being an Amiga.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-iT2LkrLs

jac_goudsmit · Post by **jac_goudsmit** » Mon Nov 20, 2017 3:17 pm

Interesting!

I may have to port that to one of my FPGA boards (I have several of them because I maintain the P1V Virtual Propeller project on Github). I never had a C64

===Jac

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Mon Nov 20, 2017 4:53 pm

The Turbo Chameleon sounds like an awesome device.

The only thing is it looks like the fpga design can only be used on altera fpga's because of some functional blocks incorporated in a binary.

Cray Ze · Post by **Cray Ze** » Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:14 pm

Which sources are you looking at? As far as I'm aware, Turbo Chameleon is closed source.

The original FPGA64 project ran on a Xilinx Spartan-3
First paragraph on this page "History".
http://www.syntiac.com/c_one.html

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:54 pm

I was following the following link from fatsie: http://www.syntiac.com/fpga64.html.

Newest version of fpga is only binary because it contains chamelon sources

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:55 pm

I have just released my next post:

http://c64onfpga.blogspot.com/2017/11/s ... ystem.html

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:34 pm

Just released my next post in the series:

http://c64onfpga.blogspot.co.za/2017/11 ... -fpga.html

In this post we develep the FPGA implementation capable of running the Test Suite.

fastgear · Post by **fastgear** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:07 pm

Just an update. I released two posts since my last notification in this thread:

http://c64onfpga.blogspot.com/2017/12/p ... ortex.html
http://c64onfpga.blogspot.com/2017/12/b ... ystem.html

Cray Ze · Post by **Cray Ze** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:42 pm

Just watch out that casex doesn't bite you in the ****.

It's designed to match on an UNKNOWN condition, and can lead to problems in the synthesized design that never show up in simulation.
This paper give a good explanation of the issues with casex (page 9).
http://www.lcdm-eng.com/papers/snug99_rtl_coding.pdf

Blog post series on Creating a C64 system on FPGA

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