QL on MIST FPGA board

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Derek_Stewart
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by Derek_Stewart »

MIST wrote:New video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVKXTzqTFFU

QL on MIST FPGA. Using 640k RAM and running Minerva + Toolkit 2 from ROM. Loading Pointer Environment and Crazy Cards from Microdrive-Image. The QIMI mouse imlementation uses the USB touchpad of the K400 keyboard connected wireless to the MIST.

And last but not least this happens on a regular TV using the SCART input as the scandoubler required for VGA can be disabled for use with TV sets.

Next i'll take a look at the QL-SD. I find the source code of the ROM image. But i don't see the compiled ROM. Does one of you have the QL-SD ROM? Either with prepended OS ROM or without ...
Hi,

Looks good, I think I will save up and buy one or I maybe have to sell my Amiga A1200 + Appollo 1230, should fund it.

I was learning FPGA programming in Verilog and VHDL, would this be a good platform for programming.


Regards,

Derek
MIST
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by MIST »

QL-SD turned out to be trivial. I actually only had to do some minor changes to the original Verilog code that was used to program the QL-SD's CPLD. Funny ... this is the first time i am actually using hardware code from a real device when rebuilding it in the FPGA.

So my setup now has 640k ram, qimi and ql-sd support.

What i'd now like to see is some nice graphic boot menu and a QL_BDI.BIN loaded with a selection of the best QL games from 30 years ago. This is imho the only chance for the QL to spark some interest in people that don't already own the real thing.
Attachments
qlsd.jpeg


MIST
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by MIST »

Derek_Stewart wrote: I was learning FPGA programming in Verilog and VHDL, would this be a good platform for programming.
I am doing all this directly on a regular mist board. Only add-on i am using is a cheap usb blaster from china (search for "altera blaster" on ebay) as this allows to directly download code onto the board without using the sd card. Plus you can use signaltap with that which basically is a powerful logic analyzer inside the FPGA allowing you to check signals in real time while the target runs.


MIST
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by MIST »

Just found the benchmark on the QL-SD. Results:

Code: Select all

Printing 1780
Functions 1900
Strings 2460
So pretty exactly twice the speed of the real thing. And that's with a CPU core running at 1.31 MHz. Yes, that's the clock the tg68 currently runs at. It's pretty efficient. In the Atari and Amiga we run it at up to 32 MHz ...


Ralf R.

Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by Ralf R. »

What's about Floppy images (.IMG from EMT4WIN)? As QPC2 v4 supports them, it would be nice to have them.

Exzellent gemacht.


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dilwyn
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by dilwyn »

MIST wrote:QL-SD turned out to be trivial. I actually only had to do some minor changes to the original Verilog code that was used to program the QL-SD's CPLD. Funny ... this is the first time i am actually using hardware code from a real device when rebuilding it in the FPGA.

So my setup now has 640k ram, qimi and ql-sd support.

What i'd now like to see is some nice graphic boot menu and a QL_BDI.BIN loaded with a selection of the best QL games from 30 years ago. This is imho the only chance for the QL to spark some interest in people that don't already own the real thing.
This is really fantastic, Till.
For games, you are welcome to use my QL Games CD http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/cdandsoft/index.html. The CD itself is freeware, the games on it are a mix of PD, freeware, shareware...
I can put it somewhere for you to download a copy if you like, although you'll face some hurdles:
  • 1. It doesn't have a front end menu and I don't have time to do one ATM,
    2. Files are stored in a QXL.WIN (a filing system 'container' file used for QL emulators), or zipped files outside that (because QL executables lose their file headers in non-QDOS environments)
    3. A lot of QL games from that period can be, umm, hard to front-end e.g. games written in absolute address code which will only work on a given size machine.
Alternatively, I think all the games are on my website, if you or anyone else would like to put something together.


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vanpeebles
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by vanpeebles »

Try Ekotek The Simulator in full colour mode!


MIST
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by MIST »

Ralf R. wrote:What's about Floppy images (.IMG from EMT4WIN)? As QPC2 v4 supports them, it would be nice to have them.
Please show me a site having some interesting images in that format. If this is limited to your personal use then it doesn't make much sense to support it.


Ralf R.

Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by Ralf R. »

I haven't tried that in QPC2, just read, that it supports that and tried the Image writer. Would be a good idea to transfer FLP to MIST. On the other side, as MIST has USB, it can support a real FLP driver via an USB drive. There is a free FLP driver from Tony Tebby via the qdos4amiga driver.
MIST wrote:
Ralf R. wrote:What's about Floppy images (.IMG from EMT4WIN)? As QPC2 v4 supports them, it would be nice to have them.
Please show me a site having some interesting images in that format. If this is limited to your personal use then it doesn't make much sense to support it.


MIST
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Re: QL on MIST FPGA board

Post by MIST »

Ralf R. wrote:I haven't tried that in QPC2, just read, that it supports that and tried the Image writer. Would be a good idea to transfer FLP to MIST. On the other side, as MIST has USB, it can support a real FLP driver via an USB drive. There is a free FLP driver from Tony Tebby via the qdos4amiga driver
I once started to add support for USB floppies to the mist firmware. I never finished it and it's neither simple nor will it be very fast in the end. And I don't see the use case. It's fun to use real floppies with the board, sure. But it's much easier to use just a bunch of microdrive or floppy disk images stored on the SD card. With the mist supporting the ql-sd there's now a convenient way to exchange bigger amounts of data with emulators on PCs. And unlike mdv images the mist can also write to the ql-sd.


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