A Better 65C265 Board

[hoglet]

BigEd wrote:

ElEctric_EyE wrote:

Ed, I think VGA clocking refresh standards do include 50Hz too?

Oops, yes indeed, you're right. I must be thinking about something else.

Many LCD TVs and Monitors don't support 50Hz VGA signals (the HP LP2065 being one notable exception).

Edit: And actually, I don't see 50Hz on that list Ed.

Dave

[BigEd]

Ahem, yes, there was me seeing 50MHz as a pixel clock and confusing it for 50Hz as a frame rate!

[ElEctric_EyE]

If you have programmable registers and a programmable pixel clock, what is stopping a 50Hz vertical refresh?

EDIT: Good point hoglet on monitors actually supporting this. Is this an issue across the pond only?

[Chromatix]

Since 50Hz is the PAL refresh rate, I think many monitors at least support 720p50 and 1080p50 for TV compatibility, if not also 576i50 which is standard PAL. They might not advertise such support in the EDID, but if you feed them the signal, they'll lock onto it well enough.

I should try some experiments with my Sun monitor to see how far it'll go. I know it accepts and downscales a 1080p60 signal even though the panel is physically 1680x1050; I haven't experimented much with the low end of the range though.

[lizardb0y]

DerTrueForce wrote:

One of the biggest things I don't like about his arrangements is the facebook group. It means you can't even see any of the discussion unless you have a facebook account, which locks me out completely because I don't have one. I'd be interested in following the progress of that project, but it looks like it's just not going to be public.

I joined the FB group. I saw that they still appeared to be struggling with modifying Gameduino to suit their needs and mentioned the F18A as a possible model for the VDP. Within minutes I had a couple of comments essentially telling me that no, Gameduino was locked in and don't even think of suggesting alternatives. I replied, making it clear I wasn't challenging any decisions and asking why alternatives shouldn't be mentioned. Apparently it's to keep "noice" off the group. My post and the entire thread was then deleted without notice or explanation.

I posted again asking why my previous post had been deleted. Again, within minutes responses (none from the admins who remained completely silent and have never oferred any explanation for the deletion) suggesting I was pushing my luck with all this unwanted "noise" and that other people had also had posts deleted for making sugegstions. Within another minute or two this post had also been deleted, and my account had been put under moderation in that group. I've left the group.

Don't bother trying to help them. They don't understand the problem space, don't want help and are actively hostile against well intentioned supporters. I guess I'll just keep playing with my '265 dev board by myself.

[lizardb0y]

cbmeeks wrote:

I think the F18A is a MUCH better choice than the Gameduino.

I couldn't agree more. It appears to meet all of Dave's original intentions. To me the fact that the logic is implemented in FPGA seems irrellevant - it is a drop-in VDP chip without having to tape-out custom silicon.

That said, by only making it available on his own assembled boards Matt has made himself a bottleneck for any plan to implement F18A in a product. If he'd release the VHDL and let others re-implement it I think that bottleneck would be resolved without affecting his own sales.

[GARTHWILSON]

lizardb0y, I don't know anything about gameduino or F18A, and I don't remember seeing what you might have posted. But I've been on the group for ten days or so (and spent way too much time reading it), and I can say that many things just keep coming up over and over and over because people want to give their advice without first reading the voluminous material that went before, and seeing that it's been addressed a thousand times already.

What I see on that group just emphasizes to be again that if you want to build a machine to sell, it's best to only let a few trusted people in on it and not open it up to a peanut gallery of 6,000+ members. I expect it's probably leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I am very pleased however that there are that many people interested in a new 65xx machine!

[lizardb0y]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

lizardb0y, I don't know anything about gameduino or F18A, and I don't remember seeing what you might have posted. But I've been on the group for ten days or so (and spent way too much time reading it), and I can say that many things just keep coming up over and over and over because people want to give their advice without first reading the voluminous material that went before, and seeing that it's been addressed a thousand times already.

I searched for discussion of the F18A before posting. Presumably they'd been deleted too.

There were however thousands of "I used to love my C64, look here's a screenshot of a game that would be awesome" and "here's my wishlist for a machine I can't help design" posts.

GARTHWILSON wrote:

What I see on that group just emphasizes to be again that if you want to build a machine to sell, it's best to only let a few trusted people in on it and not open it up to a peanut gallery of 6,000+ members. I expect it's probably leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Yeah, I guess so.

GARTHWILSON wrote:

I am very pleased however that there are that many people interested in a new 65xx machine!

Yes indeed! It was the trigger for me to bring out my '265 board with renewed interest

[GARTHWILSON]

lizardb0y wrote:

I searched for discussion of the F18A before posting. Presumably they'd been deleted too.

They're probably still there, but it takes an endless process of continually clicking "Show more replies" and "show more" so see full replies if part that mentions what you're interested in was truncated. It's very time-consuming. It's part of why facebook is terrible for this kind of discussion. There's no categorization, no real search, no way to link to a particular post, in addition to the lack of ability to have bold, underline, italics, pre-formatted text, inlined pictures, hyperlinks, lists, etc.. Facebook also seems to think nothing over a week or two old matters anymore. The archives on this 6502.org forum are just as accessible as something posted today, and I keep learning from them.

[whartung]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

What I see on that group just emphasizes to be again that if you want to build a machine to sell, it's best to only let a few trusted people in on it and not open it up to a peanut gallery of 6,000+ members.

They should take it private and then just spit out random status update posts.

If they're truly committed, then everything else is, indeed, just noise.

Next thing you know they'll be asking for Kickstart money.

I get the enthusiasm, I just never cared for the business model.

When they get a board and software and a solid demo, then they can start asking for KS money as a matter of pre-orders.

But a lot of projects looks at KS as starting capital, and that's just wrong. Something like this has a lot of raw R&D, and nobody should be paying that except for investors.

I'm not saying they'll go down this path, but I can certainly see it potentially happening.

Again, they're making a product, and they don't seem to be very keen on sharing it with the community. All well and good. But they should keep it insular and just work on the thing, and not bother engaging the community they have no intention of sharing with.

[BigEd]

(welcome to these forums, lizardb0y!)

[BigEd]

(whartung, just to note, I have a rather different take on the nature of Kickstarter than you do! It's for donors, not for buyers. If you get a reward for your donation, all the better. I am, admittedly, sticking to the intent and self-description of Kickstarter, whereas you are perhaps closer to the current public understanding of Kickstarter. However, I know this isn't quite on-topic for this thread.)

[cbmeeks]

lizardb0y wrote:

That said, by only making it available on his own assembled boards Matt has made himself a bottleneck for any plan to implement F18A in a product. If he'd release the VHDL and let others re-implement it I think that bottleneck would be resolved without affecting his own sales.

I talked to him a few years ago on releasing the VHDL as open source. He said he would entertain the idea one day. Somewhat recently, I saw a mention of him releasing the source as he's building a bigger-brother. In fact, his new creation (MK2, IIRC) is the actual size of a DIP-40 and is twice the FPGA power!

So, I think it's on the books to release the source but that remains to be seen.

If I had the FPGA chops to do this, I would do it myself. I'd create a simple FPGA "drop-in" solution that gave very basic VGA support. With maybe a few enhancements like sprites and scrolling. The TMS9918 is the perfect chip for our retro computers. The VIC-II is mega-awesome, but it's so hard-wired into the C64 that the two cannot exist without the other. Not easily.

http://codehackcreate.com/archives/592

[cbmeeks]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

It's part of why facebook is terrible for this kind of discussion. There's no categorization, no real search, no way to link to a particular post, in addition to the lack of ability to have bold, underline, italics, pre-formatted text, inlined pictures, hyperlinks, lists, etc.. Facebook also seems to think nothing over a week or two old matters anymore. The archives on this 6502.org forum are just as accessible as something posted today, and I keep learning from them.

Facebook is absolute garbage. It's whole business model is click-bait, selling your personal info and advertising. I gave it up years ago.

Forums like these are the best for specific topics. Which is why I will always be a member here.

Sorry, went OT.

[Chromatix]

That is, in fact, precisely why I have always refused to get an FB account, and do my best to avoid even visiting FB pages.

It's somewhat harder to avoid the Google empire, but they are correspondingly less evil about their ubiquity.