The F18a DIY alternative with HDMI :)

[Duewester]

To me, it was about getting HDMI out of a Ti-99/4a. The VGA is just gravy. I have 1 Tang left (wish I knew what was the solution to "VDP Down") and I eagerly await @retrocanada76's next version before I build another board.

I'd be happy (ier) with the Fat board if it was oriented either without the VGA or flipped so that it came off the other side. That way I wouldn't need so many 40 pin sockets stacked. They make the board kinda wobbly.

Actually what I need to do is learn how to use Kicad 😁

[retrocanada76]

Let me get the TI99 and I see what I can make.

[craftsman1234]

On 5/22/2023 at 2:35 PM, retrocanada76 said:

I had to solder on the pin base of the TMS connector pins, under the board:

 

I happened to find an N14001 and tested it.   I think the diagram above you have have the diode band on the wrong end.   I switched it and it works fine now and boots right up.   Your prior reply's text said to have the band towards the Tang.

[retrocanada76]

I am spoiling my computers:  CX5MU time. This version is reversible both TMS as the board itself. The vga is just a 16 pin straight cable all resistors on board. I am going to make the vga also reversible.

[Duewester]

To me, it was about getting HDMI out of a Ti-99/4a. The VGA is just gravy. I have 1 Tang left (wish I knew what was the solution to "VDP Down") and I eagerly await @retrocanada76's next version before I build another board.

I'd be happy (ier) with the Fat board if it was oriented either without the VGA or flipped so that it came off the other side. That way I wouldn't need so many 40 pin sockets stacked. They make the board kinda wobbly.

Actually what I need to do is learn how to use Kicad 😁

Edited May 24, 2023 by Duewester
Double post

[Duewester]

Seems to me, what I need is a 40 pin breakout that I can install in the place of the VDP and run out to the outside of the assembled Ti. then I can plug and play without opening and closing my unit so much.

I say this because my Frankennine has a homemade keyboard and each time I open it, something comes loose🙁

 

Something like this from @retrocanada76 but with the full 40 pins.

 

I have a Prototype on perfboard I've pieced together

 

Which could then be this

with oodles of space. There's a variable breadboard power supply behind the red breakout.

I've repurposed some Raspberry Pi stuff here so, the pinout labels should be ignored.

I'm pretty sure this setup would/will give me the clearance around the crystal on a Ti-99. The flat cable will run out any shield and cover .

 

I guess I could go ahead and solder it up and see.🤔

[retrocanada76]

there is the IDC connector 40 pins but I don't recommend that, I tried the connector is too flimsy and very very hard to assembly. 

[retrocanada76]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:03 AM, Duewester said:

The set up

the VGA colors seems off. Did you mixed-up some resistor ? The purple looks blue but it could be the angle if the monitor has a smaller view angle.

 

[Duewester]

It's the lighting. A round Fluorescent magnifying light. Colors are correct, just kinda washed out.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Duewester

[craftsman1234]

Has anyone been able to test this in a ColecoVision?    Does it fit?

[lesbird]

On 5/1/2023 at 7:52 AM, retrocanada76 said:

Sharing my latest project I've been working recently:

 

 

Hi, I'm trying to get this to work with a HA-8-3 Color Graphics Board for the Heathkit H8 computer. I had to make an extension PCB to move the F18 up higher so the HDMI cable has room to plug in. The Color Graphics Board has a TMS9918 and AY3-8910 sound chip along with ports for analog/digital joysticks and the H8 has a Z80 CPU board at 2Mhz. If I run static demos, such as a color bar test, everything is perfect but if I try running any action games or demos that have animation the screen just goes blank and nothing shows up. The monitor will display a message about "out of range" which I'm guessing it means the refresh rate. Any ideas what would cause this? I'm wondering if the games/demos are using a graphics mode that is not supported or something. Not sure what could be wrong.

 

I have a NABU as well and it works great on that.

 

If you have any suggestions or things I can try please let me know.

 

Thanks!

 

Les

 

 

[retrocanada76]

Well, I 

3 hours ago, lesbird said:

Hi, I'm trying to get this to work with a HA-8-3 Color Graphics Board for the Heathkit H8 computer. I had to make an extension PCB to move the F18 up higher so the HDMI cable has room to plug in. The Color Graphics Board has a TMS9918 and AY3-8910 sound chip along with ports for analog/digital joysticks and the H8 has a Z80 CPU board at 2Mhz. If I run static demos, such as a color bar test, everything is perfect but if I try running any action games or demos that have animation the screen just goes blank and nothing shows up. The monitor will display a message about "out of range" which I'm guessing it means the refresh rate. Any ideas what would cause this? I'm wondering if the games/demos are using a graphics mode that is not supported or something. Not sure what could be wrong.

 

I have a NABU as well and it works great on that.

 

If you have any suggestions or things I can try please let me know.

 

Thanks!

 

Les

 

 

I have no idea. I know the TMS9918A has an undocumented mirrored mode that I don't know if the F18A supports. But the F18A has some extended modes, maybe the games (or the rom) is setting the wrong bits on the vdp registers and activating them in a broken way ? Only speculating.

 

Can you run this computer with this modules on MESS ? If so, you can debug the video port and see what graphics mode it is setting. You need to start with the -debug option.

For example is the port is 0x98/0x99, type this on debugger tty:

 

trace heatkit.log,,noloop,{tracelog "%04X| %04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X |",pc,af,bc,de,hl,ix,iy,sp}
wpiset 98,2,w,,{tracelog "io: %02X << %02X\n", wpaddr,wpdata; g}
wpiset 98,2,r,,{tracelog "io: %02X >> %02X\n", wpaddr,wpdata; g}

 

the open the hatkit.log and look for the << texts

 

[retrocanada76]

Just now, retrocanada76 said:

Well, I 

I have no idea. I know the TMS9918A has an undocumented mirrored mode that I don't know if the F18A supports. But the F18A has some extended modes, maybe the games (or the rom) is setting the wrong bits on the vdp registers and activating them in a broken way ? Only speculating.

 

Can you run this computer with this modules on MESS ? If so, you can debug the video port and see what graphics mode it is setting. You need to start with the -debug option.

For example is the port is 0x98/0x99, type this on debugger tty:

 

trace heatkit.log,,noloop,{tracelog "%04X| %04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X:%04X |",pc,af,bc,de,hl,ix,iy,sp}
wpiset 98,2,w,,{tracelog "io: %02X << %02X\n", wpaddr,wpdata; g}
wpiset 98,2,r,,{tracelog "io: %02X >> %02X\n", wpaddr,wpdata; g}

 

the open the hatkit.log and look for the << texts

 

but you need to find what port the VDP is, here I am using the MSX one: 98h/99h

[lesbird]

2 hours ago, retrocanada76 said:

but you need to find what port the VDP is, here I am using the MSX one: 98h/99h

Got it, I'll see what I can figure out. I do have the 8080 ASM source files for all the demos so I can look through and see if it is setting some weird modes.

 

Thank you!

 

Les

 

[+OLD CS1]

6 hours ago, retrocanada76 said:

undocumented mirrored mode

What is this??

[retrocanada76]

3 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

What is this??

a trick you do with color/pattern address table so you get graphics 2 with only one color/pattern bank

[retrocanada76]

8 hours ago, lesbird said:

Got it, I'll see what I can figure out. I do have the 8080 ASM source files for all the demos so I can look through and see if it is setting some weird modes.

 

Thank you!

 

Les

 

If you want to share the file i am curious now...

[lesbird]

5 minutes ago, retrocanada76 said:

If you want to share the file i am curious now...

I've attached the source code for a kaleidoscope demo. It's designed for use with the Heathkit assembler for the HDOS (Heath Disk Operating System) OS and makes some calls into ROM code (see the included .ACM file) for some built-in functions such as delays and 16 bit multiplication, but none of the ROM code is for the color graphics board. All the color graphics code is in the ASM file. With that said you could probably stub out the ROM and system (.SCALL) calls and get this to run on the NABU.

 

I'm curious, does the F18 FPGA use 16K RAM or a lower amount? The color graphics card for the Heathkit is a 16K RAM (eight 4116s) card so wondering if the graphics programs are setting address tables into high memory that doesn't exist on the F18...? Just a thought.

 

Let me know if you see something odd in the ASM file. I can edit the code and build an executable here and test it if you find something.

 

Les

 

 

KALEIDO.zip

[retrocanada76]

1 hour ago, lesbird said:

I've attached the source code for a kaleidoscope demo. It's designed for use with the Heathkit assembler for the HDOS (Heath Disk Operating System) OS and makes some calls into ROM code (see the included .ACM file) for some built-in functions such as delays and 16 bit multiplication, but none of the ROM code is for the color graphics board. All the color graphics code is in the ASM file. With that said you could probably stub out the ROM and system (.SCALL) calls and get this to run on the NABU.

 

I'm curious, does the F18 FPGA use 16K RAM or a lower amount? The color graphics card for the Heathkit is a 16K RAM (eight 4116s) card so wondering if the graphics programs are setting address tables into high memory that doesn't exist on the F18...? Just a thought.

 

Let me know if you see something odd in the ASM file. I can edit the code and build an executable here and test it if you find something.

 

Les

 

 

KALEIDO.zip 4.73 kB · 0 downloads

The f18a has a full 16kb vram synthetized on fpga 

[retrocanada76]

1 hour ago, lesbird said:

I've attached the source code for a kaleidoscope demo. It's designed for use with the Heathkit assembler for the HDOS (Heath Disk Operating System) OS and makes some calls into ROM code (see the included .ACM file) for some built-in functions such as delays and 16 bit multiplication, but none of the ROM code is for the color graphics board. All the color graphics code is in the ASM file. With that said you could probably stub out the ROM and system (.SCALL) calls and get this to run on the NABU.

 

I'm curious, does the F18 FPGA use 16K RAM or a lower amount? The color graphics card for the Heathkit is a 16K RAM (eight 4116s) card so wondering if the graphics programs are setting address tables into high memory that doesn't exist on the F18...? Just a thought.

 

Let me know if you see something odd in the ASM file. I can edit the code and build an executable here and test it if you find something.

 

Les

 

 

KALEIDO.zip 4.73 kB · 0 downloads

 

The game uses the multicolor screen. I don't know if this screen mode has been implemented on F18A. Only testing...

[The Usotsuki]

Nabu VDP is port A0 (data) and A1 (address/status/register)

[+OLD CS1]

8 hours ago, retrocanada76 said:

 

The game uses the multicolor screen. I don't know if this screen mode has been implemented on F18A. Only testing...

All known screen modes and quirks are implemented in the F18A.  The official release and programming theads are in the TI Development subforum.

[lesbird]

9 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

All known screen modes and quirks are implemented in the F18A.  The official release and programming theads are in the TI Development subforum.

Yes, some of the static demos I'm running, such as the color bar test, use multicolor mode and they look perfect so I don't think that's the issue I'm seeing. It has something to do with the way the screen is being updated, in rapid succession, as the only apps that fail to display properly are the ones that update the screen repeatedly.

 

I'll keep digging to see what I can find.

 

Les

 

[djones60]

I've been following this discussion since about the beginning   But now I have a question.  Where is a good source for the GW1NR-9C boards?  I think I have a bad one.  Was all excited to get the parts and do some soldering this weekend.  But first I tried programming the FPGA.  Everything looked to go well.  But nothing on the TV, it would just say no signal.

 

Here is the chain of events.

Downloaded and installed the education version of the GoWin software.

Connect the FPGA to know good USB-C cable.

Started the programmer software and it discovered the FPGA board.

Configured it to use this board, embedded flash, 2.5 Mhz speed, the .fs file from the repo.

Selected the program/configure.

All went well and was all blue text.

Plugged in the HDMI cable and nothing.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestion on a good source for the GW1NR-9C.  Or any suggestions on what to try with this one.

David

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by djones60

[lesbird]

52 minutes ago, djones60 said:

I've been following this discussion since about the beginning   But now I have a question.  Where is a good source for the GW1NR-9C boards?  I think I have a bad one.  Was all excited to get the parts and do some soldering this weekend.  But first I tried programming the FPGA.  Everything looked to go well.  But nothing on the TV, it would just say no signal.

 

Here is the chain of events.

Downloaded and installed the education version of the GoWin software.

Connect the FPGA to know good USB-C cable.

Started the programmer software and it discovered the FPGA board.

Configured it to use this board, embedded flash, 2.5 Mhz speed, the .fs file from the repo.

Selected the program/configure.

All went well and was all blue text.

Plugged in the HDMI cable and nothing.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestion on a good source for the GW1NR-9C.  Or any suggestions on what to try with this one.

David

 

Hey David, have you tried on multiple monitors? I could not get a signal on my Samsung 32" TV so I switched to a HP 24" monitor with HDMI and it worked perfectly.

 

Les