PiStorm

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bwinkel67
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Re: PiStorm

Post by bwinkel67 »

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,
How are you going to connect the DIP64 to the QL DIP48 CPU socket?
Initial attempt will be a breadboard. Just found out that at school we can build our own circuit boards so may also go that route.
Derek_Stewart wrote: The CPU in the Gold Card is a PLCC Gull Wing Chip soldered to the PCB, a PLCC socket would be hard fit onto the CPU.
I don't own a Gold Card. Tedroid's board is seems to be a socketed chip so I would imagine the socket would have to be de-soldered and a direct connection (pin-for-pin) on a board like the the DIP2PLCC one I got for my Amiga 600 (sans a socket).
Derek_Stewart wrote: The PIStorm FPGA code would have to rewritten to suit the QL. Looks a hard job.
Bridge to be crossed if we ever get there, though Claude (PiStorm creator) has promised he'd help if we ever get to that point.

This is just a summer project to see how far I can get with it. I'm not really the right person to do that but will give it a go...nothing much to lose on a spare board. If anyone wants to help great. If not, that's ok. If it goes nowhere, then nothing lost. But there's been enough interest in the PiStorm Discord server that I figured I'd give it a go and see how far I could get. Maybe I'll learn something as I do this :) . I do have a new colleague at school who has experience with FPGAs. Not sure how that translates to the PiStrom as its all a bit foreign to me.


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mk79
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Re: PiStorm

Post by mk79 »

Derek_Stewart wrote:The CPU in the Gold Card is a PLCC Gull Wing Chip soldered to the PCB, a PLCC socket would be hard fit onto the CPU.
Super Gold Card is soldered, Gold Card has a PLCC CPU.


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bwinkel67
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Re: PiStorm

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mk79 wrote:Super Gold Card is soldered, Gold Card has a PLCC CPU.
It looks like Tetroid's Super Gold Card is also socketed:
32756_SGC_Lite_03.jpg
Edit: actually...I'm confused as to which one is the processor. Is it the small chip at the right edge of the board?


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mk79
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PiStorm

Post by mk79 »

The processor is the small chip that is normally located under the battery and isn‘t even visible, yes. Just Tetroid uses a different battery, so you can see it there.


Derek_Stewart
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Re: PiStorm

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

I checked my Tetroid Gold Card, which does have a 68000 in a PLCC socket.

So maybe this could be done,if the FPGA code for the PiStorm could be modified for the QL.


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Derek
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Dave
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Re: PiStorm

Post by Dave »

Two notes: A 68000 pin-level emulator like PiStorm will not work in a 68008 socket as the bus is the wrong size and PiStorm doesn't emulate the 68008 bus. Only the 68000 bus.

Secondly, the Gold Card, the PLCC 68000 can be removed and a PLCC reverse header used to match the PiStorm 68000 adapter to PLCC adapter. The INGOT would do the 16 to 8 bit bus state machine task. The memory on the Gold Card can be ignored and replaced by the virtual memory supplied by PiStorm.

The only real exploration is enabling the INGOT's internal registers and the various patch re-mappings applied to the OS by the GC 2.49 ROM. That said, a pre-patched ROM image can be placed at the correct secondary location and a small bootloader written just to configure the INGOT as post-2nd-boot and jump to the ROM address - which could then be moved even higher to allow up to 128MB of RAM.


Derek_Stewart
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Re: PiStorm

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

Probably, it is possible to connect a Raspberry Pi or PiStorm to the Tetroid Gold Card. But since due the issues of export from Russia, there may not be any Tetroid Gold Cards for a long time.

Maybe a more interesting idea would be to adapt the PiStorm to the QL CPU socket.


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Derek
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bwinkel67
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Re: PiStorm

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Dave wrote:A 68000 pin-level emulator like PiStorm will not work in a 68008 socket as the bus is the wrong size and PiStorm doesn't emulate the 68008 bus. Only the 68000 bus.
Yes, but Claude (PiStorm creator) had suggested the change would be trivial but since no one has created a QL 68008 adpater the point is moot to him. Hence I'm going to create a connection (and PCB) and then hopefully get help from Claude to see what needs to be changed.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by Dave »

Like a 68000 in a 68008 adapter, where you have even/odd bytes that you can just latch, the 68020 has dynamic bus sizing and the PiStorm software treats it as always a 16 bit transfer. It would honestly be easier to just redo the Gold Card PCB with a full DIP adapter and transfer the components across. You’d be able to omit the DRAM entirely, funnily enough.


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bwinkel67
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Re: PiStorm

Post by bwinkel67 »

So part of the stream on Discord...
frogofwar — 02/16/2022 wrote: When I talked to @_Bnu about 68008 and ql around new year time the main issue seemed to be the ql’s use of signals that amiga didn’t use, so weren’t handled in the cpld at the moment
Claude — 02/16/2022 wrote: Yep
But that's "just software"
So doesn't need a complete new pistorm. I guess the first hurdle is that someone actually adapts a pistorm to a 68008 socket trough some sort of adapter. Without that it's more a theoretical discussion if and what needs to be changed to make it work. Some things are obvious (8bit data bus , address line A0) but on other aspects of the QL only someone knowing the QL and 68000 could shed some light. E.g. does the QL needs bus arbitration, function codes and so on . I could look that up in schematics but actually hoped someone would take the initiative and just trys it :)


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