Raven. A homemade Atari-like computer

[agranlund]

Oh, so Mach64 really can't support 320x200? I have been wondering why there is no such resolution in the basic package (it makes it very hard for stuff like emulators as they have to use double pixels then...)

The hardware can but the driver cannot.
These cards are more or less two different cards in one.
A standard VGA compatible part which can do all the normal modes including 320x200, this one is completely unaccelerated.
Plus the more interesting one which is the register compatible clone of IBM 8514/a. This one has all the fancy accelerator stuff but cannot go below 640x480. Nova initialises it into the latter which makes perfect sense but unfortunately it has no provision to toggle back to VGA mode.

Since it defaults to VGA mode on startup I can make it go 320x200x8bpp when using no driver or EmuTOS's driver but haven't been able to switch it out of 8514/a successfully yet.
It was a while since I played around with that and once I got hold of the w32i which ticks all the boxes I kind of lost motivation.
Would be nice to find time to give it another go at some point though, these Mach cards are really nice and they come with some pretty interesting and fast acceleration besides just a blitter.
Then the second problem would become to restore everything back the way it was so Nova doesn't go bonkers when it regains control of things :)

[frank.lukas]

Hello agranlund, very nice ...

What costs should I expect for everything for the motherboard including the all pcb´s without a CPU?

[agranlund]

Hello agranlund, very nice ...
What costs should I expect for everything for the motherboard including the all pcb´s without a CPU?

It's really hard for me to say from looking at my order history.

It will vary quite a lot depending on what pcb options you go with and how many boards you order of each, and if you have use for the extra ones in a minium order or if you'll treat those as a complete write-off.
The static setup fee can end up being quite large compared to cost of each additional board, especially so for the simms depending on color and surface finish (you could manually panelize them and submit as a single order to avoid paying the "rare combo" penalty twice).

For the parts I don't have a single mouser order to get a quick picture of cost for one build, and the price for old parts is anyones guess (YM2149, MC68901, MC68150, MC68060, MC68060-socket)
Likewise for things like computer case, cables, psu, keyboard, mouse, graphics card and so on.
If you need to purchase tools for putting it together then that'll obviously add to the cost too.

Someone else who built one board might have a more accurate ballpark figure but I would treat it as something like a 1000+ eur toy.

[agranlund]

I have removed the "test" commands from the latest rom builds.

Instead there is small beginnings of a "selftest.s19" program in the "roms/srec" folder.
Just upload it with coolterm when you are at the monitor prompt and it should automatically run.
(Connection -> Send Text/Binary file...)

If you have "rom_mon.bin" flashed you automatically end up at the monitor prompt as usual.
If you have a rom with TOS flashed then you get to the monitor prompt by pressing the NMI button.

Credits for all things S19 goes to @DrZiplok

Code: Select all

RAVEN060

CPU:  M68060R06
ROM:  20241124
RAM0: 01000000
RAM1: 01000000
RAM2: 01000000

InitBss
InitHeap
InitUart
InitIkbd
InitMfp
InitMidi
InitI2C
InitRtc
InitCfg
InitVbr
InitMonitor
InitAtari
InitVbr
InitMmu
InitEmu
InitTos
Start


 d0: 00000000  d2: 011e0000  d4: 00000000  d6: 00e60000
 d1: 0000fd8c  d3: 011e0013  d5: 00020101  d7: 00010010
 a0: 0000c360  a2: 00e5771e  a4: 00e5763e  a6: 0000b860
 a1: 00000000  a3: 00e5f37a  a5: 00010f90  a7: 0000ac64
 pc: 00e577e8  sr: 2000                   usp: 00010f90
vbr: 00581500  tc: 00008210 srp: 00581200 urp: 00581200
dt0: 00000000 dt1: 00000000 it0: 00000000 it1: 00000000
pcr: 04300601 bcr: 00000000 ccr: a0808000
> S00F000073656C66746573742E7331397B
S-record upload complete, jumping to 0x00600000...


Raven selftest
 YM2149...
  Byte writes (you should hear a bell sound)
  Long writes (you should hear a bell sound)
  OK
 MFP1:R/W...
  OK
 MFP2:R/W...
  OK

** Result: OK
> 

Here's a partial output of a simulated error:

Code: Select all

 MFP2:R/W...
  R/W Error on $a0000a13
   expect: 01010101
   result: 01010101
   badbit: ........
   expect: 10101010
   result: 11011110
   badbit: .xxx.x..
  Hint: U401[PD23:16], U103[D7:0]
  FAIL

** Result: FAIL, see log for details

[luciodra]

Code: Select all

> S00F000073656C66746573742E7331397B
S-record upload complete, jumping to 0x00600000...


Raven selftest
 YM2149...
  Byte writes (you should hear a bell sound)
  Long writes (you should hear a bell sound)
  OK
 MFP1:R/W...
  OK
 MFP2:R/W...
  OK

** Result: OK

[agranlund]

ATI Mach32, finally 320x200x8bpp! Much joy :)

[Oldskool]

:) :D
Cool
How did you do that? What kind of tricks can that Mach card do more I wonder.

[agranlund]

:) :D
Cool
How did you do that?

Poking directly at the videocard like it's the 1990's.
It's not pretty going behind the drivers back but for fullscreen exclusive things I regret nothing :lol:
That videomode is a must-have for me :)

Still need to be able to get back to the mode we came from.
And also to figure out how to best integrate this into _something_ so things that need it can use it.

I'm not really sure what the best approach would be but I'm leaning on a small TSR extension to Nova..
Essentially hijack setmode calls, detect if the user wanted 320x200x8bpp and if so do the magic/hackery. Otherwise pass on the call onto the real Nova function. That TSR could be built into the existing Raven package and require no additional auto-executables.

[Oldskool]

Pretty cool indeed what you can do with a Mach card:




https://ardent-tool.com/video/reg-68800 ... isters.pdf

[danboid]

ATI Mach32, finally 320x200x8bpp! Much joy :)

Congrats!

Eagerly awaiting your video of Quake running silky smooth (or at least smoother) at said res.