What's preventing the Atari from having it's own chameleon

[Syfo-Dyas]

http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm

 

Seriously, imagine having an Atari that ran at that speed with 16Mb of RAM, never mind the other features, this is just amazing!!!

[frogstar_robot]

Someone would have to do the work of reimplementing ANTIC, GTIA, POKEY, and PIA for an FPGA. And there is nothing remotely trivial about that. There is only fragmentary public knowledge about Atari's actual hardware implementations of those chips. So only portions of some of them can be directly reverse engineered. The rest would have to re-implementations working backwards from how they're known to behave. That process would an iterative process of trial and error with many revisions necessary to achieve good compatibility. I suppose the guts of a VBXE could be used as a kind of "super GTIA" though that still leaves quite a bit to do.

 

Add more time and trial and error if the recreation is to be hotrodded in any way.

 

So unless Curt or Albert wow us with some skunkworks project, I don't believe anything like it will happen soon. I'd love to be wrong though!

 

As long we're just geeking out about fantasy super 8-bits done with current tech, there is one other piece of logic I'd love to see. That would be programmable memory map and port manager. Program it one way and the chipset behaves as a 400/800, reload and it becomes an XL or even a 5200. This device should have a port on it that makes available every bus, port, AN0-2 and so-forth. This would be handy for separate break out boxes that can configured to handle any cartridge, controller, PBI/ECI device or plug and play versions of any mod. Though the Fantasy Atari8/16 (may as well chuck in a 65816 while we're at it) should already have gobs of RAM, Flash Storage, and crystal clear video.

 

I don't expect any of this to happen. It's just fun to think about.

[Syfo-Dyas]

Very fun to think about indeed! And the funny thing is that I really can't think of a single practical application for this hardware, at least nothing that can be done on it that can't be done on an already existing C64, but I'm going to order one anyhow. Same goes for the 7800 modification that is soon to release. I've no use for it, it really doesn't have a software library that takes advantage of it's features, but something inside me tells me I must own one.

 

I guess deep within my soul I believe that a group of coders will come along, recognize all this awesome retro gear we have within our reach, and begin churning out musick apps and games that put everything we've seen in the past to shame.

[sloopy]

well if we are gonna go full fantasy, this is what i want...

 

a new logic board, that will fit in a Apple IIgs case, uses a single simm for up to 16M of extended ram, has 7 slots on for each PBI id, a modified GTIA/ANTIC with 80col capability, with vga type output. two sd card interfaces, with the slots out the front of the machine, and an internal sata connector, and floppy (capable of up to 4 drives, of any type from a SSSD mech, up to 2.88MB 3.5")... sd/sata/floppy act like true PBI devices and are capable of being disabled. an external kb, two choices, a 1200XL type or a USB, both capable of being hooked up at the same time and used with console keys on them, and a second set of console keys on the main unit itself (ala XEGS). Internal RTC, intSDX (switchable) internal OSS langs (switchable), and OS rom with 32 OS's switchable, and 8MB of ROM for cart images, capable of 8/16K and XE super cart bank switching. FPGA CPU, with 6502C, 65816, 68030 modes in speeds of stock up to atleast 100Mhz. a small 2x3 LCD on the front of the case with internal status of the cpu (showing register contents, address profiling, etc). 4 pokeys, with 4 channel sound, and 4 PIA's with the extra lines coming out the back for controlling and analyzing stuff. Two modes of operation, one XL/XE compatible, and one where it has a logical memory map for the machine, and CPU running...

 

and just to keep things sane... 100baseT port on the back...

 

sloopy.

Edited November 19, 2010 by sloopy

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm

 

Seriously, imagine having an Atari that ran at that speed with 16Mb of RAM, never mind the other features, this is just amazing!!!

 

 

Very nice but DAAAAMMMNNNNN $$$$$$$$$

[+bob1200xl]

SIMMs run at 80ns access time - too slow for real work. You have to use static RAM (<25ns). The other chips (ANTIC, GTIA, etc.) can all run at normal speed. Just the CPU and memory need to go really fast. You don't have to change ANTIC/GTIA to get 80 columns or VGA output.

 

The C64 thing costs $280(!) and doesn't even look compatible with current software.

 

100mhz? What kind of memory runs at 100mhz? Wait-State City...

 

Not all fantasy if you tweak it a little.

 

Bob

 

 

well if we are gonna go full fantasy, this is what i want...

 

a new logic board, that will fit in a Apple IIgs case, uses a single simm for up to 16M of extended ram, has 7 slots on for each PBI id, a modified GTIA/ANTIC with 80col capability, with vga type output. two sd card interfaces, with the slots out the front of the machine, and an internal sata connector, and floppy (capable of up to 4 drives, of any type from a SSSD mech, up to 2.88MB 3.5")... sd/sata/floppy act like true PBI devices and are capable of being disabled. an external kb, two choices, a 1200XL type or a USB, both capable of being hooked up at the same time and used with console keys on them, and a second set of console keys on the main unit itself (ala XEGS). Internal RTC, intSDX (switchable) internal OSS langs (switchable), and OS rom with 32 OS's switchable, and 8MB of ROM for cart images, capable of 8/16K and XE super cart bank switching. FPGA CPU, with 6502C, 65816, 68030 modes in speeds of stock up to atleast 100Mhz. a small 2x3 LCD on the front of the case with internal status of the cpu (showing register contents, address profiling, etc). 4 pokeys, with 4 channel sound, and 4 PIA's with the extra lines coming out the back for controlling and analyzing stuff. Two modes of operation, one XL/XE compatible, and one where it has a logical memory map for the machine, and CPU running...

 

and just to keep things sane... 100baseT port on the back...

 

sloopy.

[sloopy]

yeah the fantasy was someone building it, not its possibility of being built, as for the ram, all ram would be SRAM, but the other big thing would be 64k of dual port sram for 'video memory' where it wouldnt have halt cycles for antic access, unless video ram itself was being accessed. and the cpu could buzz along full speed...

 

 

SIMMs run at 80ns access time - too slow for real work. You have to use static RAM (<25ns). The other chips (ANTIC, GTIA, etc.) can all run at normal speed. Just the CPU and memory need to go really fast. You don't have to change ANTIC/GTIA to get 80 columns or VGA output.

 

The C64 thing costs $280(!) and doesn't even look compatible with current software.

 

100mhz? What kind of memory runs at 100mhz? Wait-State City...

 

Not all fantasy if you tweak it a little.

 

Bob

 

 

well if we are gonna go full fantasy, this is what i want...

 

a new logic board, that will fit in a Apple IIgs case, uses a single simm for up to 16M of extended ram, has 7 slots on for each PBI id, a modified GTIA/ANTIC with 80col capability, with vga type output. two sd card interfaces, with the slots out the front of the machine, and an internal sata connector, and floppy (capable of up to 4 drives, of any type from a SSSD mech, up to 2.88MB 3.5")... sd/sata/floppy act like true PBI devices and are capable of being disabled. an external kb, two choices, a 1200XL type or a USB, both capable of being hooked up at the same time and used with console keys on them, and a second set of console keys on the main unit itself (ala XEGS). Internal RTC, intSDX (switchable) internal OSS langs (switchable), and OS rom with 32 OS's switchable, and 8MB of ROM for cart images, capable of 8/16K and XE super cart bank switching. FPGA CPU, with 6502C, 65816, 68030 modes in speeds of stock up to atleast 100Mhz. a small 2x3 LCD on the front of the case with internal status of the cpu (showing register contents, address profiling, etc). 4 pokeys, with 4 channel sound, and 4 PIA's with the extra lines coming out the back for controlling and analyzing stuff. Two modes of operation, one XL/XE compatible, and one where it has a logical memory map for the machine, and CPU running...

 

and just to keep things sane... 100baseT port on the back...

 

sloopy.

[kskunk]

Modern technology makes these kinds of things possible, but it's a huge amount of work. You'd basically need somebody who was completely nuts to do it as a labor of love. Thankfully most communities have some of those around.

 

I'm also curious why anyone wants 100MHz. Is it just to say 'Hey, look, I'm 50 times faster!' or is there some practical benefit on old software? I suspect modern emulators can achieve performance similar to that.

 

- KS

[+bob1200xl]

The emulator vs. real hardware is pretty much a different issue. It has to be a given that you want real hardware.

 

If you write your own software (simple BASIC things, some m/l routines, etc.), the extra horsepower makes a marginal implementation (can you spell BubbleSort?) much more usable - in some cases. Sure makes ASM/ED wake up on compiles. There are any number of work-arounds for the slow OS routines. Don't need them so much with faster clocks. Old BASIC stuff gets healthier, more useful. Word Processors get lively.

 

Things are just more practical with big memory and fast clocks.

 

Bob

 

 

Modern technology makes these kinds of things possible, but it's a huge amount of work. You'd basically need somebody who was completely nuts to do it as a labor of love. Thankfully most communities have some of those around.

 

I'm also curious why anyone wants 100MHz. Is it just to say 'Hey, look, I'm 50 times faster!' or is there some practical benefit on old software? I suspect modern emulators can achieve performance similar to that.

 

- KS

[OldAtarian]

A VGA output would definitely be desirable for any old Atari. Finding monitors that sync to the old frequencies is getting harder and harder.

[OldAtarian]

Modern technology makes these kinds of things possible, but it's a huge amount of work. You'd basically need somebody who was completely nuts to do it as a labor of love. Thankfully most communities have some of those around.

 

I'm also curious why anyone wants 100MHz. Is it just to say 'Hey, look, I'm 50 times faster!' or is there some practical benefit on old software? I suspect modern emulators can achieve performance similar to that.

 

- KS

 

Unfortunately, most communities also have tons of members who say they'd buy something like that until it comes time to actually put the thing into production and then 99% of them end up backing out, usually because the cost of the project went way beyond what they expected it would be. It's hard for most people to justify paying more than $20 for anything Atari related these days, no matter what it does. Only the hardcore fanboys would pay for something like this and there aren't enough of them to justify the tooling costs for a production run in many instances. We can't even get enough homebrewers together to share the cost of a run of plastic cartridge shells. I seriously doubt enough people would get together to justify a production run of these for the A8.

Edited November 19, 2010 by OldAtarian

[spookt]

Modern technology makes these kinds of things possible, but it's a huge amount of work. You'd basically need somebody who was completely nuts to do it as a labor of love. Thankfully most communities have some of those around.

 

I'm also curious why anyone wants 100MHz. Is it just to say 'Hey, look, I'm 50 times faster!' or is there some practical benefit on old software? I suspect modern emulators can achieve performance similar to that.

 

- KS

 

Unfortunately, most communities also have tons of members who say they'd buy something like that until it comes time to actually put the thing into production and then 99% of them end up backing out, usually because the cost of the project went way beyond what they expected it would be. It's hard for most people to justify paying more than $20 for anything Atari related these days, no matter what it does. Only the hardcore fanboys would pay for something like this and there aren't enough of them to justify the tooling costs for a production run in many instances. We can't even get enough homebrewers together to share the cost of a run of plastic cartridge shells. I seriously doubt enough people would get together to justify a production run of these for the A8.

 

Well it's happened at least twice now for VBXEs and the reproduction MIOs cost a lot more than $20, SDrive NUXX, SIO2USB, etc, etc. I think it depends on the product. I'm really not sure what the point of this C64 cart is TBH but when quality products for the A8 are announced there's usually quite a lot of interest.

Edited November 19, 2010 by spookt

[Bryan]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

 

I'm all for things that make using the A8 more convenient, but at some point strapping über-modern hardware onto retro platforms makes me lose interest.

[spookt]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

 

I'm all for things that make using the A8 more convenient, but at some point strapping über-modern hardware onto retro platforms makes me lose interest.

 

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. I felt that way about the VBXE originally. I'm actually more interested in the pin sharp video out I saw on Flashjazzcat's VBXE machine than the fancy blitter capabilities, but the rest will be fun to play with Plus I'll only ever have one VBXE enabled machine. I probably have 15 or more stock machines too.

 

My main machine is a 600XL with RAM 320XL plus dual Pokey and part of the SuperVideo mod and to be honest, I'm pretty happy with that.

Edited November 20, 2010 by spookt

[+Spaced Cowboy]

I've thought about doing some of this. The problem is that it starts to become a completely new system with the XL being a keyboard/joystick/SIO interface. I originally just wanted a built-in VGA...

 

You need to implement Antic - ok, not that hard, it's a fairly limited (in design terms) chip. But... Then you have to also handle display-list interrupts which means you need a 6502 in there as well.

 

Ok, that's a bit harder - it's relatively easy to do it in general, but my gut feeling is that cycle-accurate timings (at least in the same ratio as the original 6502) would be needed, and that starts to get a bit more difficult.

 

You also want VGA output, which adds a few wrinkles to the integration of the DLIs with the antic-replacement module. I was going to just run DLI code every other frame, and see how that went - because my VGA would be cycling at 60Hz, whereas NTSC is 29.97... Critically-timing-dependent code probably wouldn't run, but most things wouldn't care.

 

Next is sound - although in my design, I offloaded that to the old XL.

 

And then (since I was deep in by this stage) I wanted a standard expansion system. I was going to use ISA slots and basically have a VME-style interface to the cartridge port. That means new cards could be just edge-contact so no expensive multi-way connectors.

 

[sigh] Then my reef fish-tank broke, and I've been busy building a replacement (the new 240-gallon 8' x 2' x 2' tank arrives on Tuesday... Happy days together with a new controller-design, and LED lighting controllers / fixtures. The condition for this is that I build-in bookshelves and make the whole thing look like an elegant piece of furniture at the end of the room. It's at least another 6-month project... After that I have a design for a reverse-pulse-plating power supply I want to try out, to see if I can do through-hole plating at home, and then I want to build a garden shed this Summer... After all that, I'll have some more time

 

So I guess you'll have to wait

 

If someone else wants to take a bash though, the Terasic DE0 board ($119) was what I was going to base it around - this board cries out to be used in this sort of application, assuming you're willing to only use 4096 colours on the VGA. I was

 

 

Simon

[kskunk]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm coming from. When you build a from-scratch design based on a 21st century FPGA, that's not 'classic hardware', even if the design has a fair amount of backward compatibility.

 

If you paid me to build a 100MHz Atari 8-bit (any takers?), I'd start with a CPU running an emulator, not an FPGA.

 

The result is the same, but the CPU version could be a lot cheaper for collectors to buy. One emulator is written in C code, the other is written in Verilog code. But I get the feeling people would be unsatisfied with the CPU version somehow.

 

- KS

Edited November 20, 2010 by kskunk

[frogstar_robot]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

 

I'm all for things that make using the A8 more convenient, but at some point strapping über-modern hardware onto retro platforms makes me lose interest.

 

Indeed, but what you have there is something that will run A8 software but it really isn't an A8. It boots Windows or something first and just makes it clear it is a PC. And it'll take around a minute to do it. I suppose someone really dedicated could strip down a host OS and boot the thing mostly out of rom very quickly but it'll still be a PC mimicking an Atari and very obviously too.

 

A re-implementation with modern tech that doesn't go overboard is still going to be an A8. You'll turn it on, it may make fart noises if you don't have boot media for it, and then you'll see a blue screen with a white cursor. And quickly. It would be at least as geniune as the C-64 DTV. The VBXE seems accepted and there have been several stabs at integrating a 65816 over the years. And even the VBXE seems more early nineties capability than a DX10 GPU card these days. So we'll have a little box that would look like an Atari take on the IIGS except physically smaller....well unless we fulfill the dreams of the fellow that wants his in a IIGS case.

 

And it doesn't even have to be that. I'd be stoked just to see the basically the A8 chipset integrated with a well thought VGA display circuit. And that simply because the old monitors are becoming threatened species as well. A 130XE on a chip would rock all by itself even if wasn't hotrodded. Just because you refabricate old tech with modern parts doesn't you have to go crazy and bury the essence of the platform just because you have 20,000 extra transistors burning a hole in your pocket.

[Divya16]

And it doesn't even have to be that. I'd be stoked just to see the basically the A8 chipset integrated with a well thought VGA display circuit. And that simply because the old monitors are becoming threatened species as well. A 130XE on a chip would rock all by itself even if wasn't hotrodded. Just because you refabricate old tech with modern parts doesn't you have to go crazy and bury the essence of the platform just because you have 20,000 extra transistors burning a hole in your pocket.

 

I see a few issues here with VGA: one it doesn't look as good as NTSC monitor (smoothened/rounded pixels). I haven't seen any VGA use full overscan like I see it being used on some A8 games like Star League Baseball. I'm not sure what VBXE does with full overscan. I am going by this NTSC->VGA encoder module that I sometimes use. Colors seem to be off on RGB monitors-- maybe RGB palette is a subset of the Lum/Chrom based palette.

 

And what does this "turbo" module achieve unless it also has an exact 1Mhz mode for backward compatibility given most software is done with that assumption (for C64). So A8 board would have to have a 1.79Mhz exact mode and some turbo switch.

[+Philsan]

To me A8 is a stock 64KB machine or a machine with dual Pokey and max. 320KB.

My main machine is a 600XL with RAM 320XL plus dual Pokey and part of the SuperVideo mod and to be honest, I'm pretty happy with that.

More speed and better graphics would have been important before 1990 to compete with other platforms but nowadays, if I want a better machine, I can use another platform (for example Amiga) or a modern PC.

IMHO the most important thing is software so compatibility and a wide installed A8 user base is essential.

[barnieg]

The problem is going to be mass production vs hobbyist or at least some middle ground for cost. You also need someone to reverse engineer the 8-bit chipset and recreate in FPGA and if your really lucky an ASIC.

 

As an example of what might be possible http://www.retroleum.co.uk/v6z80p/ this is z80 based and is not massively expensive, a 6502 version with different FPGA cores for different architectures could be a goer, and why not design it as a replacement 600XL motherboard?!

 

 

Barnie

[Bryan]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

 

I'm all for things that make using the A8 more convenient, but at some point strapping über-modern hardware onto retro platforms makes me lose interest.

 

Indeed, but what you have there is something that will run A8 software but it really isn't an A8. It boots Windows or something first and just makes it clear it is a PC. And it'll take around a minute to do it. I suppose someone really dedicated could strip down a host OS and boot the thing mostly out of rom very quickly but it'll still be a PC mimicking an Atari and very obviously too.

 

Perhaps, but with things like Coreboot you could build an emulator right into the BIOS if you didn't want a whole OS.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ

Edited November 20, 2010 by Bryan

[sack-c0s]

The Atari needs something more like the C64 DTV I reckon - close enough to the original hardware to be compatible and cheap so it can be sold to the mainstream as a retro-toy to easily relive some fond memories of old games, yet with a few hidden extras and solder points to make it a coders toy too

Edited November 20, 2010 by sack-c0s

[carmel_andrews]

You know what's a lot more cost effective? A cheap PC mobo running Altirra.

 

I'm all for things that make using the A8 more convenient, but at some point strapping über-modern hardware onto retro platforms makes me lose interest.

 

Indeed, but what you have there is something that will run A8 software but it really isn't an A8. It boots Windows or something first and just makes it clear it is a PC. And it'll take around a minute to do it. I suppose someone really dedicated could strip down a host OS and boot the thing mostly out of rom very quickly but it'll still be a PC mimicking an Atari and very obviously too.

 

Perhaps, but with things like Coreboot you could build an emulator right into the BIOS if you didn't want a whole OS.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh no, not linux....You really like the CLI stuff...Perhaps MS were wrong to get shot of command prompt in win 7

Edited November 20, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[barnieg]

 

Oh no, not linux....You really like the CLI stuff...Perhaps MS were wrong to get shot of command prompt in win 7

 

 

CLI stuff?! I support Linux & Windows stuff and the average Linux user doesn't have to to! I dual boot Windows 7 with Ubuntu and Ubuntu is just as easy to use, my Wife and kids use Ubuntu with no problems. In addition if someone wants a PC purely for emulation why spend money on a Windows license?!

 

As to a stripped down linux in ROM that's actually a very good idea and with a little work you could probably fit the Atari800 emulator in with it. The enduser would not have to see Linux at all, add some Atari joystick interfaces etc and it would make a pretty decent system.

 

 

Barnie

[frogstar_robot]

 

As to a stripped down linux in ROM that's actually a very good idea and with a little work you could probably fit the Atari800 emulator in with it. The enduser would not have to see Linux at all, add some Atari joystick interfaces etc and it would make a pretty decent system.

 

 

Unfortunately, Altirra has rapidly become the gold standard of A8 emulation. And that is unabashedly DirectX all the way. Unless the Atari800 or Atari++ wow us with something, the best A8 emulator currently doesn't run easily in Linux.