Nova GPU Case

[frank.lukas]

I can download the first one with no problem but on the second one I have 404 error

I had no problems with macOS and Safari ...

[SpacedCowboy]

Surely there's a better use of engineering effort than trying to shoe-horn a very rare ISA graphics card into the half height VME card slot?

I wonder if all the great hardware/software talent here couldn't create a new graphics card? Possibly base it on a Raspberry Pi Zero using the GPIO as a 16 bit data bus and having the Pi interpret VDI commands directly and outputting to HDMI natively. It would only need a shim driver on the TT/MegaSTE then. The relatively low bandwidth of the bus would only be a bottleneck for uploading bitmap/pixmap images.

Surely that would be even faster than a 1992 graphics chip and generate less heat? It would also be more popular potentially amongst TT/MegaSTE owners as the Pi Zero is a darned sight easier to come by than any of the ISA cards the NOVA can support, and a heck of a lot cheaper too.

It was just a thought.

Came here because I’m currently 3D printing that fabulous Nova case, having got my brand old Mach64/VME-nova-board-from-frank yesterday… I’m just going to leave this here…

It’s not quite the same (for my project, there is no AES either, so I’m currently working on that when not fiddling with the 3d printer), but since I’m (a) using a raspberry pi, and (b) serialising the VDI calls over a socket, it seems like it’s 90% of the way there :) In fact, as I mention in the post, it occurred to me that the ST cartridge port would be a viable vector for making it work.

It doesn’t solve the problem of applications using “dodgy” tricks to increase speed, but clean GEM programs ought to work. I’m currently using a pi4, not a pi0, and targeting 32-bit 1080p, but resolution/colour depth can scale with hardware.

There’s a snapshot of the VDI code running on my Mac (for dev purposes) here if you’re interested. It’s test-as-you-go code, so it’s not exciting, but it shows off a few things.

[Maximilian]

@Icky
What kind of 3d printer are you using?
Any mods?

[Icky]

@Icky
What kind of 3d printer are you using?
Any mods?

There is a whole thread here on my printer viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2086

[Icky]

Came here because I’m currently 3D printing that fabulous Nova case, having got my brand old Mach64/VME-nova-board-from-frank yesterday… I’m just going to leave this here…

It’s not quite the same (for my project, there is no AES either, so I’m currently working on that when not fiddling with the 3d printer), but since I’m (a) using a raspberry pi, and (b) serialising the VDI calls over a socket, it seems like it’s 90% of the way there :) In fact, as I mention in the post, it occurred to me that the ST cartridge port would be a viable vector for making it work.

It doesn’t solve the problem of applications using “dodgy” tricks to increase speed, but clean GEM programs ought to work. I’m currently using a pi4, not a pi0, and targeting 32-bit 1080p, but resolution/colour depth can scale with hardware.

There’s a snapshot of the VDI code running on my Mac (for dev purposes) here if you’re interested. It’s test-as-you-go code, so it’s not exciting, but it shows off a few things.

Hi @SpacedCowboy, it would be good to see your project as a member blog in the member blog section viewforum.php?f=18

I think @Badwolf may be interested with similar projects he has been working on.

[SpacedCowboy]

… and done