For me RAM to I/O port would be sufficient...
(better if from any ram page, even better if from pages non active in the current slot;
this could simplify the HW and increase the ram space used at the same time...)

sunrise: if you have it on some site then {img}www.yourwebsitewiththatimage.com/thisimage.png{/img}, and replace {} with [] .. otoh, let's browse the photoshoots first


here 's one!

Quite satisfactoring , but is it only .png as far as you know?

Also jpg, bmp and gif I think, but if you are able to choose a format: choose .PNG .. it's small and lossless. Jpg is only nice'ish at high qualitylevels, and even then PNG still rox harder.

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For me RAM to I/O port would be sufficient... (better if from any ram page, even better if from pages non active in the current slot; this could simplify the HW and increase the ram space used at the same time...)

Was what i mean with linear adressing .... (no matter how z80 see it's memory, the DMA adress it linearly)
Plus including VRAM as addressable memory could even do special things!

Usining dma to i/o ports can be very usefull as well.
E.g. you can use it for pcm audio, or for setting vdp registers
but i must admit that linear ram access is the most interesting way to have it

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Usining dma to i/o ports can be very usefull as well. E.g. you can use it for pcm audio, or for setting vdp registers but i must admit that linear ram access is the most interesting way to have it

If it can have some kind of programmable logic operations between bytes from source / dest and If can see all the VRAM-RAM as one thing will be excellent and help to remove the first msx architecture limit. I/O to from VRAM.

But, this is only a dream...

Hi,

Let me introduce myself shortly, I am Tim Brugman and I was the technical person behind 'Sunrise Hardware Service' some years ago. I finished my study electronics and I am familier with both VHDL and the Altera FPGA family and its design software. So I am very exited about this OCM, but...

I'm a little concerned about something real basic, the FPGA configuration mechanism. It seems to me that only a EPCS4 (512kB serial flash) is used for configuring the FPGA, instead of a more intelligent approach using some CPLD or a little micro controller.
In other words, it seems that the FPGA can only be configured out of a dedicated flash memory, not from SD/MMC card or RAM.
I think for the success of this new MSX it is really important that it is possible to use the bennefits of the configurable hardware in a convenient way. Imagine, you write a new spectecular game or demo, but you need some specific hardware acceleration. It should be possible to load your own modified hardware togeter with the software, but without being permanently.
Or what to think about a 'sega master system rom loader' or a 'C64 game loader' that loads a complete other system togeter with a game rom. When the user pushes the reset button, the origional MSX boots again.
The possibilities are almost endless when this is possible. But as far as I know it is not possible for the FPGA to reconfigure itself, so if the developers did not think about this all this will never happen.

Does anyone know more about this? How easy will it be to (temporarilly) put a modified 'gateware' in the OCM?

I wish somebody answer timbr

Hey Tim, welcome back

Anyway, what you describe is the idea, AFAIK... So I hope it's indeed possible. Snout?

What I understand from OCM MKII spec is that FPGA reprogramming is done via those 10-pin and 40-pin connectors, am I right ?

cax - no, rest assured... it's a lot easier. You -can- use the 10-pin and/or 40-pin connector for reprogramming the FPGA (and from what I heard it would even be possible to connect 2 OCMs via the 40-pin connector), but a simple MSX-DOS tool (which comes with the One Chip MSX) is more than enough to get the job done.

In other words: you don't need expensive cables (or to break open your cool OCM casing) to get started.

but if you reprogram it and your VHDL is buggy and it crashes... then you need the cable I guess?

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but if you reprogram it and your VHDL is buggy and it crashes... then you need the cable I guess?

Exactly my point. Is it possible to fall back to a 'factory default' configuration when a new configuration does not work correctly or isn't a MSX at all, so that the MSX-DOS tool does not work.

And is it possible to reconfigure the FPGA without programming the flash? I'm afraid not, but as I tried to explain before, this would really be a killer feature. Only when this is possible the hardware can be programmed as was it software making almost everything possible.

AFAIK, that config-ROM can be used to fall back to the 'old' configuration and the idea is just as you say timbr. Let's hope it will become true.