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Niclas Aronsson
Sweden
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Posts 57
09 Apr 2011 10:37
| Thomas Hirsch wrote:
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Now I got the LX chipset also working on the MX board. This means two things: The system is complete now. The next steps will be to continue to get a basic running system which will work for the development boards. Then, while several people can use and test the system the design gets further optimized.
Board Features
VGA out ................... working
DVI out ................... o
PCI ....................... transfer only, arbiter and config missing
IDE ....................... PIO mode 0 working
Compact Flash connector ... o
NEC USB PCI ............... o
RTL 8110 LAN .............. o
Battery-backed up clock.... working
15k Video out (module) .... o
15k Video in (module) ..... o
Audio in .................. o
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Anything new since last update Thomas ? :) (yes i know i'm impatient)
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Thomas Hirsch
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 647
10 Apr 2011 22:33
| OK, I can understand the you are impatient. Current status is that the MX board works as well as the LX. The design is now running stable for several days without any (hardware/design related) crash. In contrast to the LX board the MX board now has a much larger FPGA and more memory. While I was adapting the design I also added the flash and FPGA download logic. In summary this means a stable running alpha release is ready and the board can be operated as stand alone. Currently we have two working prototype boards. But they are equipped with the small/slow FPGA which can be bought in low/single quantities. The bigger/fast FPGA can only be bought in quantity. Unfortunately (of course for the people living there) there were some "catastrophical" issues in Japan. Surely everyone has heared of. Since then the electronic component industry does not give any order confirmation dates at all because they do not know all the global dependencies. For us this means we have already ordered the FPGAs and memory but we do not have a confirmation date of their delivery. So all we can do is wait.
Meanwhile the alpha-release is gaining some features as we are continuously working on the design.
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Vann Vicious
USA
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Posts 5
11 Apr 2011 02:49
| Thanks alot for the update Thomas! I check this forum almost every day for this thread alone, I really appreciate you taking the time to keep us up to speed. Really great work!
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Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands
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Posts 3975
11 Apr 2011 03:50
| Thomas Hirsch wrote:
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Unfortunately (of course for the people living there) there were some "catastrophical" issues in Japan. Surely everyone has heared of.
Since then the electronic component industry does not give any order confirmation dates at all because they do not know all the global dependencies. For us this means we have already ordered the FPGAs and memory but we do not have a confirmation date of their delivery. So all we can do is wait.
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Tell me about it Checking the current prices for stuff like the MAX232 even makes me sad.
i am just happy we aren't that far through our components yet that we are forced to go along in the price fighting frenzy where this will be heading to if the component factories remain closed.
I already saw some components back to the prices they were 15 or 20 years ago.
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Niclas Aronsson
Sweden
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Posts 57
11 Apr 2011 07:24
| Thomas Hirsch wrote:
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OK, I can understand the you are impatient. Current status is that the MX board works as well as the LX. The design is now running stable for several days without any (hardware/design related) crash. In contrast to the LX board the MX board now has a much larger FPGA and more memory. While I was adapting the design I also added the flash and FPGA download logic. In summary this means a stable running alpha release is ready and the board can be operated as stand alone.
Currently we have two working prototype boards. But they are equipped with the small/slow FPGA which can be bought in low/single quantities. The bigger/fast FPGA can only be bought in quantity.
Unfortunately (of course for the people living there) there were some "catastrophical" issues in Japan. Surely everyone has heared of.
Since then the electronic component industry does not give any order confirmation dates at all because they do not know all the global dependencies. For us this means we have already ordered the FPGAs and memory but we do not have a confirmation date of their delivery. So all we can do is wait.
Meanwhile the alpha-release is gaining some features as we are continuously working on the design.
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Excellent news! Huge thank you for the update.
Will wait (patiently) for another 2-3 weeks before i nag again :)
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Niclas Aronsson
Sweden
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Posts 57
13 Apr 2011 22:45
| As my first picture i made of all the connectors seems to popup here and there and because I made some mistakes on that. I have now made a new version that I think is more ME :)
EXTERNAL LINK
Same as last time. Natami team can use it or not.
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Jakob Eriksson
Sweden
| | (Moderator)
Posts 1097
14 Apr 2011 00:18
| Thanks, it looks great!
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Wojtek P
Poland
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Posts 1597
14 Apr 2011 16:15
| Marcel Verdaasdonk wrote:
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Thomas Hirsch wrote:
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Unfortunately (of course for the people living there) there were some "catastrophical" issues in Japan. Surely everyone has heared of.
Since then the electronic component industry does not give any order confirmation dates at all because they do not know all the global dependencies. For us this means we have already ordered the FPGAs and memory but we do not have a confirmation date of their delivery. So all we can do is wait.
|
Tell me about it Checking the current prices for stuff like the MAX232 even makes me sad.
i am just happy we aren't that far thrugh our components yet that we are forced to go along in the price fighting frenzy where this will be heading to if the component factories remain closed.
I already saw some components back to the prices they were 15 or 20 years ago.
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Take into account that such a kind of crisis hits everyone, but losses could only be judged RELATIVE to others.
Natami project actually wins in such situation. Natami cost isn't mostly chips, compared to other mass-produced electronics.
So look at this like Natami being 10% more expensive and say iphones, or PCs 50% more expensive.
This is actually an advantage for Natami.
EVERY crisis gives an advantage for inventions this way.
Every crisis actually have very good side, which is important.
While tens of thousands of dead people isn't fun, look at the bright side.
I don't wish wrong to Japanese but if i would live there i would already go out. From my non-mainstream knowledge and intuition i predict Japan will be hit soon by much worse things and end partially underwater. But this is offtopic, just plan ahead and look at bright side of Natami project if chips will be scarce.
Say 10 millions FPGAs are available when 25 are wanted.
Still - no that problem to get 300 pieces for natami, but no-go for someone needing million pieces. Sellers and producers would prefer selling small amount first as it means higher price.
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Niclas Aronsson
Sweden
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Posts 57
14 Apr 2011 18:45
| Niclas Aronsson wrote:
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As my first picture i made of all the connectors seems to popup here and there and because I made some mistakes on that. I have now made a new version that I think is more ME :)
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There is no end to my failures :P corrected a mistake.
EXTERNAL LINK
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Joe M
Norway
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Posts 500
14 Apr 2011 20:56
| Niclas Aronsson wrote:
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There is no end to my failures :P corrected a mistake.
EXTERNAL LINK |
I think there's still an error there. You have written Realtek using a "C" instead of a "K". Anyway, good work! :) Looks even better now.
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Blaster Real
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Posts 2
22 Apr 2011 13:22
| Jakob Eriksson wrote:
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A video will be shot in April.
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We are waiting for the video!
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Ed Dream
Russia
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Posts 28
22 Apr 2011 14:17
| There has not specified the year .... )))
I apologize for flooding. A possible issue?
In the closed section of the forum there are interesting topics.
Can I get there somehow access in read mode?
It is clear that many of the threads are closed because of the commercial interests of the team. But technology is very interesting At least read it. Or in another way.
Can we expect to expand the command, the usual and ordinary users as beta testers.
I for example would buy Dev Board order that would test the user's part.
I also can help with localization Russian-screen menus and user documentation.
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Jakob Eriksson
Sweden
| | (Moderator)
Posts 1097
22 Apr 2011 14:25
| Thomas and a few others met earlier this April, and originally it was planned there would be a little video produced then. Now we don't know when the next video will arrive. As for Eds question, the team section is hard to open up, because we talk a lot of things there, which could lead to confusion and speculation. Sometimes we refer to things which happened years ago and would be easy to misunderstand. It is more like a chat. To have different levels of - one public - one betatester - and one dev section - that is something I don't know if we are planning to do. My guess is no, but others will have to answer that. best regards!
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Thomas Hirsch
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 647
06 May 2011 22:43
| First true enhancement
For the first time on the MX board it is getting exciting, even for me. Till now I was "only" adapting the LX design to the new board. OK, by doing that I made quite huge progress in stability and usability. The board can now even be operated stand-alone. But this were just all the many mandatory things needed for the completeness of the system itself. But now... I was able (and had the time) to improve, or rather extend ECS. As you (hopefully) know, OCS had a hard wired frame generator. Because of that there were two different Agnus chips, one for NTSC and one for PAL. With ECS this issue was resolved in a quite superior manner. They did not only implement a NTSC/PAL switch but also added a complete set set of frame generation registers. From that on there was no limitation to the screen size anymore. Even the A2024 resolutions (1024x1024) were possible. This was a lot more than a common PC could offer that time (in 1988).
With the ECS frame generator it was even possible to display some VGA screen modes as 640x480. But there was still one limitation. The pixel clock was limited to fixed 28MHz. For the A2024 this was no problem, the refresh rate was set to 10Hz and the monitor itself had a built in frame buffer to display the image content at a much higher frequency. VGA and Multisync monitors had no internal memory. So this technique could not be used and resolutions that high as the A2024 were not possible to display on them. And even the 800x600 resolution needed to be in interlace because of the in comparison low pixel frequency. AGA did increase the color depth and the overall number of colors available, but left the pixel clock unchangeable.
The pixel clock on the Natami is not generated by an external oscillator. It is synthesized by a programmable PLL (Phase Locked Loop). Its frequency can be changed at run time. I now implemented an interface which allows the PLL being accessed through DFF registers. With that I am able to set up a basic screen resolution of 1280x1024 in 60Hz for a functionality test. Not system friendly, just a part of a memory field and mouse pointer. But it actually works. I have known it from the beginning that it is possible and will work, but seeing that the Natami can now match the native resolution of my test TFT is something different! I`ll send a design update to Annika as soon as I can.
And the second good news is that with the new resolution I was able to confirm that the digital portion of DVI is also working.
Chipset Features
(new) Frame generation .......... ECS and variable pixel clock -> UCS
SyncZorro Interface ....... preliminary version
Copper .................... fully implemented, with buffered data fetch
Video DMA ................. fully implemented
256 color registers ....... fully implemented
AGA HAM8 .................. fully implemented
Sprites ................... 16bit linebuffer
blitter ................... basic implementation. Block and fill mode only, line to come
Video priority ............ half implemented
Scandoubler ............... fully implemented
Interrupts ................ fully implemented
Paula DMA control ......... fully implemented
Audio out ................. fully implemented
Disk DMA .................. 880k and 1760k, read only
Serial Port Paula UART .... fully implemented
Slow peripheral I/O ....... fully implemented
(Joy/Mouse/Keyb/PRT/DSK/SER)
PC mouse and kbd support .. o
CIAs ...................... fully implemented
Board Features
VGA out (DVI-A) ........... working
(new) DVI out (DVI-D) ........... working
PCI ....................... transfer only, arbiter and config missing
IDE ....................... PIO mode 0 working
Compact Flash connector ... o
NEC USB PCI ............... o
RTL 8110 LAN .............. o
Battery-backed up clock.... working
15k Video out (module) .... o
15k Video in (module) ..... o
Audio in .................. o
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Joe M
Norway
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Posts 500
07 May 2011 07:11
| Interesting read. Great to see that everything goes as you planned. Good work!
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Andi Friede
Germany
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Posts 24
07 May 2011 07:31
| Fantastic to hear this Thomas! Great work man.
Looking forward to seeing this in Annika's diary:-)
Keep going and thanx a lot for the magic!
Andi
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Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands
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Posts 3975
07 May 2011 09:30
| Indeed not a system friendly solution but one that could work with workbench and programs that are OS based.
for a 640*460 resolutions you can use a 25MHz this is not a exact frequency match
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Loïc Dupuy
France
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Posts 253
07 May 2011 09:42
| Thanks for your work. Only Natami make it possible :-) We are like a bunch of kids in a candy store waiting the preparation of the new batch of candies :-)
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Jacek Rafal Tatko
Espania
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Posts 607
07 May 2011 21:41
| ł Hello , The Electronic Paper Natami ( NEP ) can do all the things bulkier smartphones can do ... such as make and take calls , send messages , play , play music or display e-books ...·*O The Natami Wristband is a watch when convex , a PDA when flat and a phone when concave ...·*O EXTERNAL LINK .·*O
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Chris Dennett
United Kingdom
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Posts 135
10 May 2011 02:54
| You are nuts :)
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The team will post updates and news here