List of FPGA cores that could be ported to Chameleon hardware

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • I was approached with the suggestion to port a TI99/4A core. I wonder if there is a vivid scene around that computer? I mean, it's an interesting architecture, a 16-bit processor@3MHz from the early 80s. I even found a demo, but are there notable games?

  • I was approached with the suggestion to port a TI99/4A core. I wonder if there is a vivid scene around that computer? I mean, it's an interesting architecture, a 16-bit processor@3MHz from the early 80s. I even found a demo, but are there notable games?

    Tombstone City and Parsec were kinda fun but it'd not be in my top ten wish list for new cores.

  • This has now caused to think about what would I really want to have next...


    ZX Spectrum (yeah, it sounds like the port to V2 will happen one way or another, yay!)

    Apple ][GS

    Apple //e

    ZX81

    BBC Micro

    Atari ST

    Atari 400/800

    Commodore 128

    Anything from the Elektronika PDP clone line.

  • The Spectrum core for the V1 hardware is kinda difficult to port to V2, as it does not use our Chameleon IO instance, but "something self-made", which would have to be ported to the new hardware. I have my doubts that anyone else than the original author can do that in acceptable time, but the original author has no interest in that core any more.


    The good news is that the author of the TI99/4A core who contacted me, supposedly also has a Spactrum core, so that may be a possible second-source for a Speccy core.


    ZX81 would be nice to play around with, but then again, it would need real tape support, where the Chameleon does not have any interface for that. I owned a ZX81 when I was 10 years old, and I even still have the tapes with the basic programs that I wrote back then. However, I have my doubts that I'd play with such a core for more than 20 minutes - just from what I remember doing 35 years ago.


    Atari 400/800 is in the works; Mark Watson, the author of the Atari XL core has confirmed just today that the V2 unit arrived at his place (was en route for over two weeks...).


    Apple.. there is a core that has beven been ported to Altera platforms: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/apple2fpga/ - and that even uses Peter's 6502 CPU. If anyone would port that to the Chameleon, I'd be happy. And I'd even be more happy if someone would teach it to write to disk (-images). It does accept tape input from an iO pin, but then again, we lack the interface on the Chameleon to accept tape input.


    C128? Hmm.. never thought about it, probably because there is no notable software for the C128 that isn't available for the C64 as well. But I'd spend some money on an ST port. And I'd give the new Docking Station MIDI in/out if someone did an ST port. Sooo... anyone?

  • Here's a list of existing FPGA cores of which I'm currently aware, which could potentially be ported to the Chameleon64 hardware. Most of these exist for competing hardware - some will be easy to port, some will be very difficult. The discussion about cores and porting was in danger of getting lost in the chatter in the "Ported to V2" thread, so I thought a list such as this would be helpful.


    In the interests of avoiding duplicated effort, if anyone else is working on a core, especially porting to V2 hardware, it would be helpful to know, so that no-one else picks up the project. For this reason I've put my own initials by the projects either done by me, or on my "To Do" list.


    If anyone knows of a project that should be added, or if anyone else is working on porting any of these please post below and I'll update the table.


    Home Computers Ported to V1 Ported to V2 Effort required to port Adopted by Notes
    Acorn Archimedes

    moderate
    Will require an OSD / disk co-processor in the core, and an associated extra port into the SDRAM controller.
    Amiga (ECS) yes yes
    AMR
    Amiga (AGA)

    high
    Will require an OSD / disk co-pro + SDRAM port, FPGA nearly full
    Amstrad CPC




    Apple II+




    Apple Macintosh




    Atari ST – MIST

    high
    Will require an OSD / disk co-pro + SDRAM port, FPGA nearly full
    Atari 800 yes yes

    MW
    BBC Micro




    Commodore 16




    Commodore 64 Built-in Built-in
    PW
    Commodore PET




    Commodore VIC-20 yes yes
    PW
    Mattel Aquarius




    Next186 IBM PC
    yes
    very high
    Last time I looked, not easy to build on Altera FPGAs
    OneChipMSX yes yes moderate AMR There's a newer version upstream that will require more effort to port.
    Sam Coupe




    Sinclair QL




    TRS-80 Model I




    ZX Spectrum yes


    ZX80/ZX81













    Consoles




    Atari 2600 yes yes
    PW
    Atari 5200




    Bally Astrocade




    Colecovision




    Nintendo Game boy




    NES




    NEC PC Engine yes yes moderate AMR There's now a newer version that will require some effort to port.
    Sega Master System




    Sega Genesis / Megadrive yes
    Low / moderate AMR There's a newer version that will require more effort to port.





    Arcade




    Frogger




    Galaga




    Galaxian




    Moon Patrol yes yes

    AMR
    Pacman yes yes

    AMR
    Pengo yes yes

    AMR
    Space Invaders




    Ghosts and Goblins

    high
    Will require an OSD / disk co-processor – published source difficult to build
    1942

    high
    Will require an OSD / disk co-processor – published source difficult to build
    1943

    high
    Will require an OSD / disk co-processor – published source difficult to build
  • next186 is kindof ported, kludges are that it requires an sd card with a specific layout to load its bios from, some kind of bootloader would be required to load the bios from chameleon flashrom preferable, like the TC64 core does (download from opencores, the source for chameleon v2 is in a zip inside the download).


    amstrad cpc shouldnt be terrible hard to port for the most part (it runs on the c-one) - however, it would need some kind of "Bridge" to implement CF-card (IDE) style access on the SD-card

  • nope :) you can copy the names from here, btw. The atari800 guy is working on v2 ... the speccy core unfortunately is not opensource, and the original author isnt interested in it anymore, however i do have a copy of the code and peter may look at it later (we are busy fixing the c64 core right now).

  • It will be a long time before we see on v2 arcade already available on v1 (Moon Patrol, Pengo etc) and other arcades like Ghosts and Goblins.?

    Many thanks

    To be clear, this is just a list of cores that could potentially be ported, with the rather optimisitic intention of tracking who's working on what, to avoid duplicating effort. It's not a promise that any of them will be ported!

    Having said that, I do plan to port the PACE cores to the new hardware in the near future.

  • any way we can support you robinsonb5? I'll happily send a pint your way, Pengo is such a fantastic gem.

    Thanks for the thought - I'll look into setting up a virtual tip jar at some point.


    In the meantime, Pacman is 95% working, and Pengo nearly works, so I should be able to release the arcade cores before too much longer.

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