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Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
| | (Moderator)
Posts 5775
02 Apr 2010 10:21
| bernd afa wrote:
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this done list look maybe a little strange, because years ago is a working natami see.
So wy can it happen that now blitter and some other features AOS need listet as not work ?
My guess here is, that it is not so easy to move old code to new FPGA with other size and nm size so you must adjust some delay lines to avoid runtime influence because modern chips are smaller.
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Ha ha ha, Your guess is a funny idea.
The reality upgrading to a new FPGA is not a problem.
We could upgrade to a new model next year, any later year relative easy. The VHDL code will run unchanged on faster/future FPGA also.
I'll you what Thomas is doing and why its important:
The original OCS chipset was 16bit and had a 16bit memory interface.
AGA Chipset was 16bit also.
The AGA Blitter was 16 bit.
But AGA could do either 16/32/64bit access for Video and Sprite DMA.
Because of the improved fetch modes of AGA could display mode planes than OCS.
The original AMIGA had regular old DRAM.
The new NATAMI design uses DDR Memory. DDR 2 memory to be precise.
The previous Natami test-design did use normal DRAM just like the old AMIGA did use them.
DDR memory can be MUCH faster than old DRAM - But only if you are properly bursting all the time. When you are not bursting than even todays DDR3 memory is not significant faster then the memory of the old AMIGAs.
There are two options for a future AMIGA.
A) Simple memory access (1by1) as the old AMIGAS had it.
= Then you also only reach a speed in the range of original AMIGAS B) Use the features of todays bursting, pipelining memory access.
If you di this properly then you can reach performance like a modern PC. We do of course want the best speed for SAGA.
This means we want MUCH higher performance than A4000.
In fact Magnitudes higher performance!
Which means we can not use the simple memory design of the old AMIGA.
We need to have a complete improved DMA which does prober busting all the time.
Improving all the DMA channels to burst is what Thomas is doing currently.
This means SAGA does always do wide burst on the memory.
Therefore the memory interface is MUCH faster than old AMIGA were. All questions clear now?
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Thomas Hirsch
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 647
03 Apr 2010 14:21
| Blitter As important the Blitter is as much time it takes. I spent very much time with the Blitter. Now I have a basic implementation ready which is working quite perfectly. Even the pipelining behaviour is exactly like the original one. The easiest way to test and show the working Bitter is trapping into a Guru. As you know all graphics, including text, is done by the Blitter. And as you can see the text is displayed correctly. 
As you also can see the border is not drawn. This is due to the still missing line mode which will follow in a while. In the list I write "basic implementation" because even this implementation will be very fast I expect some room for improvement. Frame generation ........ ECS, fixed 28MHz pixel clock
SyncZorro Interface ..... preliminary version
Copper .................. fully implemented
Video DMA ............... fully implemented
256 color registers ..... fully implemented
Sprites ................. 16bit linebuffer
(new) blitter ................. basic implementation. Block mode only, line and fill to come
Video priority .......... half implemented
Scandoubler ............. fully implemented
Interrupts .............. fully implemented
Paula DMA control ....... fully implemented
Audio out ............... o
VGA out ................. working
DVI out ................. o
PCI ..................... o
IDE ..................... o
CIAs .................... fully implemented
Disk DMA ................ DD, read only
Serial Port DMA ......... o
Slow peripheral I/O ..... fully implemented
(Joy/Mouse/Keyb/PRT/DSK/SER)
Fast RAM controller ..... o
Kickstart flash logic ... o
Battery-backed up clock.. o
15k Video out ........... o
15k Video in ............ o
Audio in ................ o
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Matt Hey
USA
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Posts 737
03 Apr 2010 14:36
| Wow! Now I'm starting to get excited. This little test shows not only the blitter working but use of the blitter, kickstart and cpu all working together. Good old guru is back ;). It can't be long now.
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Wawa Tk
Germany
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Posts 581
03 Apr 2010 16:05
| thomas, not that your roadmap and snapshots are bad or not enough, but guess what i believe everyone would really like to see?
- the picture of actual dev board hooked up to the vga showing if only that screen. it just takes a minute.;)edit: even better with floppy plugged in..
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Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
| | (Moderator)
Posts 5775
03 Apr 2010 16:30
| wawa tk wrote:
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thomas, not that your roadmap and snapshots are bad or not enough, but guess what i believe everyone would really like to see?
- the picture of actual dev board hooked up to the vga showing if onlto y that screen. it just takes a minute.;)
edit: even better with floppy plugged in..
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Your request makes no sense - unless you want to imply that you or someone is thinking Thomas is lying.So what is the point of this?
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Channel Z
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Posts 227
03 Apr 2010 16:42
| A lot of people think Natami is vapour, just like they thought the Minimig was vapour.
This is the way it has been in the Amiga community after getting screwed over by companies breaking promises for many years, to the extent that many people can't tell an earnest community effort from some scam.
Also, many people do not understand the technical significance of the milestones achieved. The only way to please those people is to show pics like the one Wawa Tk requested.
The question is - is it worth the energy to bother with pleasing these people? I think not. The amount of crap out of some peoples mouths will not cease anyway.It would be interesting to see new pics of Natami LX when it gets a few more components soldered to it, such as PCI ports and so on, though.
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Thomas Hirsch
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 647
03 Apr 2010 16:59
| No, nobody is. He just wants to know how the test-setup looks like: 
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Team Chaos Leader
USA
| | (Moderator)
Posts 2094
03 Apr 2010 17:23
| I can't read the serial # in that pic :^D
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Wawa Tk
Germany
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Posts 581
03 Apr 2010 17:33
| gunnar is almost as easy to provoke as os4 devs ;). channel z and thommas are both right, one thing is i like to see what working setup looks like (since pictures tell more than...) and the other is that such a photo really proves something.
y know, to you dev team members this project is reality you can lay your hands on, others cant. dont underestimate the sensual experience. people sometimes need to put finger into wound to believe. if you have only seen an elephant on a photograph you might suspect it is a fake.
thats why i asked.
would be cool to see the whole situation however this request is probably too private.
cool to see that both types of processor boards are working if im right. the left cable is obviously for serial debug, right? the middle, is that vga? looks like digital output but this isnt working yet i thought. the grey is ps2 mouse i take it and below floppy. really cool! many thanks!
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Channel Z
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Posts 227
03 Apr 2010 17:39
| It is obviously a DVI connector, and I guess the two cables coming out of it is a VGA/DVI splitter. That makes it a DVI-I port, with both analog and digital signals in the same port.
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Thomas Hirsch
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 647
03 Apr 2010 18:01
| The white one is DVI-I. And a splitter cable is plugged in. But Only VGA is running for now. The gray one in the back is a ps/2 A4000 keyboard. Mouse is in the front the left of the two blue joystick ports. PC mouse and keyboard support is not implemented yet.
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Wawa Tk
Germany
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Posts 581
03 Apr 2010 18:17
| ok. that figures. the ps2 mouse wouldnt have a grey connector nor probably cable, i knew i messed something up. so the keyboard is at least partly working by now?
edit: ok i see: slow peripherial. that means you are close to a basically running system, from a floppy and with chip-ram there is only to take care of blitter it seems.
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Jason
Canada
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Posts 19
03 Apr 2010 20:35
| These are some exciting developments! Will the Natami be able to drive high-resolution displays, such as 2048x1152? I'm not concerned about video or game performance at this resolution, just regular desktop software work. I want to use Natami as my main PC once it is completed, however, high-resolution displays are important to me for regular desktop work. Thank you so much for your efforts.
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Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands
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Posts 3991
03 Apr 2010 23:27
| Thomas it looks great, IMHO a bigger step then the floppy but that is me. :P @Jason why such a high resolution?
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Team Chaos Leader
USA
| | (Moderator)
Posts 2094
04 Apr 2010 00:56
| Would 1920x1080 with 256 colors be good enough for you?
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Jason
Canada
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Posts 19
04 Apr 2010 01:48
| Anyone who buys a 23" Samsung Syncmaster ends up with 2048 x 1152 instead of the typical 1080p resolution. From what I understand, this is the highest resolution available without dual-link DVI. Many monitors are going this route; it is becoming a bit of a standard. I'd hate to have to sell it off and buy another for the 1080 resolution.
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Team Chaos Leader
USA
| | (Moderator)
Posts 2094
04 Apr 2010 01:52
| Can't your monitor display a 1920x1080 screen?
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Jason
Canada
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Posts 19
04 Apr 2010 01:54
| Not without looking terrible and blurry (It is an LCD panel).
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Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands
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Posts 3991
04 Apr 2010 02:37
| What is the aspect ratio 16:10 ? I think it can be done Jason but i doubt it would be without consequences.
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Jason
Canada
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Posts 19
04 Apr 2010 02:47
| It is 16:9 ratio. I think this support would be worth it as it appears to be becoming the new 'high end' as far as LCD monitors go. A search for 2048x1152 on google shows lots of info.
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