BLITTER RE-CREATION THOUGHTS

[fenarinarsa]

I cant really comment on all that. But creating chips like the blitter is to move us towards running them faster.. along with RAM and CPU.. So there isn't any need for "tricks" in this respect to get full screen etc as it would just be possible anyway with a new chipset.

I guess any other mod that have access to the bus could do the trick.
But then it should be able to take priority over the blitter if it's working to feed the two registers, and I guess the easiest way to install it would be under the CPU or under the blitter.

That's why I thought about packaging that into the "new" blitter.

There's also the possibility of making an equivalent of the old "Overscan" card (a better one, that is), but it wouldn't work on STE since it needs to be installed between the GLUE and MMU if my memory serves me well, and you need to cut tracks anyway (yickes). Unfortunately, hardware-wise, it's the most stable solution.

But again, I'm just making suggestions, I know how hard it could be to develop those projects because they're mostly hobbies and days are only 24h long. Would I know how to do electronics and FPGA programming, I guess I'd lend a hand. But I'm only a software dev. :(

[exxos]

A bit of a update . @Icky and I have been looking at soldering the bga FPGA ourselves with some issues. Long story short, I am waiting for gold plated PCBs to come back ( hopefully in about a weeks time) . the HASL is just to uneven to reliably solder the BGA chip on. So this should be more doable with better results once the gold boards arrive.

[sporniket]

kudos for daring soldering bga chips !

[Icky]

Finally got round to getting the Voltera to paste the ultra fine BGA footprint and soldered the chip in place.



There was an extra deposit of solder on the first pad but that was cleaned up with a pair of tweezers.

I did have a gotcha, I messed up in the schematic :) see if you can spot the error.

Screenshot 2021-06-19 at 09.55.38.png

Board is in situ in my H5 and we are back to the stage where the older bigger board (v2) was.

IMG_0243.jpeg

It's pushing 98% on the Blitter score in GEMBench as per the v2. There are a few stability items need investigating as its not playing ball with HDD at the moment.

IMG_0240.jpeg

It has been a long time getting here as there have been many things getting in the way but finally for all these re-creation projects Sparkalabophia, Phoenix Shifter (blue board in the photo) we are now at the stage that the boards are working so we can concentrate on bug fixing the firmware to get these as close to 100% compatible as possible.

[DoG]

...I did have a gotcha, I messed up in the schematic :) see if you can spot the error...

LDS/UDS switched... normal mistake.

[Icky]

Yep you got it @DoG. Fortunately I could just swap them around in the pin planner of the FPGA.

[alienkidmj12]

is the phoenix shifter actually released now, can you buy them ?

[exxos]

is the phoenix shifter actually released now, can you buy them ?

Nope.. And this is blitter thread...

See here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 610#p62213

[Cyprian]

Hi Team, any news?
Is there a chance to buy one?
I'd like to experiment a bit with programming it.

[exxos]

Hi Team, any news?
Is there a chance to buy one?
I'd like to experiment a bit with programming it.

Life,lack of time,parts shortages, assembly problems, is holding up all projects and will likely not continue until next year now.

Any news no matter how small will always be posted in the relevant threads. But basically there's only @Icky working all on his own on all the FPGA stuff, and there are several projects ongoing already.