I've just received MSX Mag 3: on page 114 there is an image of a portable PC running Quartus II and connected to a 1CM through a flat cable.
This is connected to PC parallel port (it is not visible but a window indicates ByteBlasterII (LPT1))
and to the 10 pins/FPGA connector of 1CM.

I imagine that this is the download cable:
www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_bbii.pdf
It is not very complex and probably we could build it by ourselves...

I'm not very expert of hardware and FPGAs so I could be wrong but there is something
not very clear to me:

1) here:
www.bazix.nl/faq_how_can_i_put_my_compiled_vhdl_code_in_the_fpga_chip.html

says that:
"The One Chip MSX will come with an adapted version of MSX-DOS on SD card"

Question:
so should the package contain also an SD card?

2) here:
www.bazix.nl/faq_will_the_vhdl_source_code_for_the_msx1_system_be_open_source.html

says that:
"The One Chip MSX will be delivered with the VHDL code that is used to achieve MSX1 compatibility"

Question:
I imagine that VHDL source code could take at least 1MByte, is it contained on SD-card? or perhaps on a CD-ROM?

3) I imagine that, at boot, FPGA will be loaded with a default contained in a serial EEPROM
(MSX Mag 3, page 108, item E)
Probably both MSXDOS-tool and FPGA cable will load this EEPROM with a different VHDL so at next boot the new configuration becames active.
If the new configuration hangs the machine or SD-card cannot be read anymore then cable is
necessary to rewrite EEPROM with original (MSX1) default.

Question:
Is this correct?

Thanks

In both texts, the term ''VHDL code'' is mentioned. This is not precise. To get the FPGA working, VHDL sourcecode must be compiled and synthesisized to get a bitstream file for FPGA configuration. This bitstream is then loaded into the FPGA. It can be loaded via the cable or form EEPROM. Maybe there will we a switch to select wheter the configuration is taken form the EEPROM or loaded by cable without altering the EEPROM, or if the EEPROM should be reprogrammed by the bitstream loaded via the cable.

About SD, the delivery could just contain a CD with software to format with MSXDOS system an SD card.
By the way is it MSXDOS1 or MSXDOS2 since there is 256k mapper memory.
I doubt FAT16 patch exists for msxdos1...
About VHDL, I believe one goal of the 1CM is to encourage people who wants to develop on this system.
I dont think the goal is to protect VHDL for commercial purpose in the short term.

Quote:

*sigh*... more depressing news please?

More bad news indeed :

http://ken.akari-house.net/1chipMSX.html

Translation of text on 3 August :

Single-chip MSX sale discontinuance is certain

...

If the numbers of the sale decision reservation are lowered up to 3090, it is likely to be able to put it on the market.

...

The number of reservation 2614 (:+28 compared with the day before)

...

Taking a pessimistic view value 2742 (:+21 compared with the day before)
Standard value 3096 (:-114 compared with the day before)
Optimism value 3737 (:-1328 compared with the day before)
Super-optimism value 4860 (:-2684 compared with the day before)

- When the super-optimism value becomes less than 5000, it becomes sale certain discontinuance.

I doubt they won't sell the OCM if they reach 4860 sold units...

Even with the announcement of the MSX2 upgrade kit, the general tendency of the sales (low ...low ...) does not have changed.

It means that only about 3100 pre-orders will exist on 20 August.

So, Ascii must now choose between the following options :

- low the required pre-orders to about 3100
- reconsider all his offer to propose later a better package to the MSX community
- let another company make an alternative offer

the counter on ASCII's page doesn't include orders via Bazix I guess.

option 4: Nishi buys the remaining OCM's

option 5: use those stupid teleshopping-TV channels to sell them

Tellsell

At least they would prolly edit the ad with my music @ Telsell .. ^_^

I took a look at the ESE MSX project and they put the Z80 externally.
So a real Z80 is on the board and the FPGA emulates the rest , it is not a bad idea
since a Z80 quite cheap , this can free almost one third of the fpga contents

Leo - I think implementing the Z80 in FPGA is a much smarter choice, making the One Chip MSX a lot more versatile. You can tweak the Z80 a bit (adding/improving registers or opcoders perhaps, or just increasing its speed) or, if you'd like to let the OCM perform as a different computer, make it perform as an entirely different processor, leaving the Z80 out. As there already is a Z80 implementation that works great and only uses ~9% of the gates available in the OCM I'd say there's little reason for using an external Z80, which basically takes a lot of freedom away.

Besides, not only the Z80 adds to the costs, it also has to be connected to the PCB... but that's just a minor detail

Snout wrote:

Quote:

... As there already is a Z80 implementation that works great and only uses ~9% of the gates available in the OCM I'd say there's little reason for using an external Z80, which basically takes a lot of freedom away. ...

From the faq:

Quote:

In an MSX2 setup, the amount of gates in use can roughly be devided into the following: Z80 CPU 18.0% ... By estimation, the Z80 core, the V9938 core and the MSX-MUSIC core can be optimized in order to use only 50% of the Logical Elements they are using at the moment.

Is the faq out of date, or have you taken an optimisation that only exists as an estimation so far into account and presented it as current state of affairs?

I remember the z80-core taking over 30% of LE's, has over 12% been optimised away? how? did it cost any emulation accuracy?

Arnold

Yep , I remember that z80 takes 4000 logic element out of 12000.
But I was mentioning this external z80 because the fpga seems a bit small for implementing
for than MSX2+...
I thought about duplicating the VDP so this enables surimpose effets : one vdp image can be
used for huge sprites. And everythin is duplicated : size of vram / #sprite / screen 5 could have
32 colors out of 512 ...
...
Improving the VDP would be very exicting : what about a programable VDP , it could execute
basic Z80 instructions with a subset of registers : only HL and A .

arnold_m: the faq is not out of date, it mentions the current Z80 core using 18% of the gates, but also announces updates of the VHDL code that reduce the amount of gates the Z80, VDP and MSX-MUSIC are using to ~50% of what they currently use, without affecting accuracy. An optimized Z80 core that only uses about 9% of the gates already is available and it looks like it can be implemented in the OCM shortly after its release.