Sega MD/Genesis Turbocard

[Matej]

And what about turbocard like on AMIGA or ATARI ST?



- plug into expansion port
- new CPU (68020min->68060max)
- new RAM (16MBmin->4GBmax)
- MP3,MIDI,WAV,OGG encoder=no CPU time (http://www.vlsi.fi/en/products)
- new VDP (Yamaha V9990 or new in FPGA?)
- SD card (for OS and files)
- on board battery /realtime clock, RAM backup/
- audio mixer (SN+YM+MP3 encoder) -> audio out
- audio out / 2x cinch or 1x stereojack/
- video out /s-video?, composite?, vga?/

Or everything in FPGA? I am not HW geek... And this idea is crazy.
Anyways it will gives new HW upgrade scene. Take this topics as funny brainstorming!!!

[Matej]

VLSi MIDI,MP3 Encoder demo...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJtBCxLmQ60

[TmEE co.(TM)]

There's a thing called thirty-two-ex

[Matej]

Yes I know.
But it is little bit overpriced and I cant buy them here in my country... They are very rare.

[TmEE co.(TM)]

USA has them in piles, and not at high prices. its not expensive even with shipping.

Then ther's the Mega Everdrive that can do a ton with that FPGA on it.

[Matej]

USA has them in piles, and not at high prices. its not expensive even with shipping.

Then ther's the Mega Everdrive that can do a ton with that FPGA on it.

Are there any FPGAcores (coprocessor or better graphics, souns) for Mega Everdrive???

[TmEE co.(TM)]

You are free to make some.

[Zontar]

USA has them in piles, and not at high prices. its not expensive even with shipping.

Then ther's the Mega Everdrive that can do a ton with that FPGA on it.

Are there any FPGAcores (coprocessor or better graphics, souns) for Mega Everdrive???

The most I could see you being able to do is a sort of SVP solution that enables some slick realtime 3D graphics. Increasing resolution or number of colours would require a video out on the hardware extender, but an SVP remake would be possible simply by generating the scene in FPGA and dumping it into the VDP (which is exactly what the SVP as well as the SNES coprocessors do).

Better sound you could probably do by generating PCM and feeding it into the 2612's PCM line.

Doing both at the same time would likely exhaust the bandwidth available to the cartridge port, although I don't know what the max throughput is exactly.

[doragasu]

Better sound you could probably do by generating PCM and feeding it into the 2612's PCM line. know what the max throughput is exactly.

IIRC the cartridge port has an analog audio input (can't remember if it's mono or stereo though) so it should be possible to generate CD quality audio using hardware embedded in the cartridge, without the need of using the YM2612.

[TmEE co.(TM)]

Unfortunately Nomads and Genny3 lack connections on those pins. All else has them wired up.

[Chilly Willy]

Unfortunately Nomads and Genny3 lack connections on those pins. All else has them wired up.

Yeah, I miss that when using my Nomad to play SMS games with the Md Myth flash cart. No FM music.

But at least I can play SMS games. Thanks for fixing up my Nomad, Tiido.

[Orion_]

now that the SVP opcodes are known and we can test it on emulators, has anyone tried to make a custom SVP code and try to run it on a real SVP cart ?
that would be interesting

else, we could contact krizz to ask him to include an fpga module in his Mega everdrive cart for a custom processor

[Chilly Willy]

The tools for the SVP are the main issue - you have an old Samsung assembler, and that's it! You'd need to assemble the code, then incbin it into the test app.

After that, the next issue is testing. An emulator supporting the SVP would work in the short run, but nothing beats testing on real hardware. An SVP module for the MegaEverdrive would be nice, but I rather doubt KRIKzz will work on one.

[Nemesis]

The tools for the SVP are the main issue - you have an old Samsung assembler, and that's it! You'd need to assemble the code, then incbin it into the test app.

We have a what now? Where's this assembler, I've never come across one.

After that, the next issue is testing. An emulator supporting the SVP would work in the short run, but nothing beats testing on real hardware.

I have the best testing tool for the SVP:

Unfortunately I haven't had any time to do anything with it.

[Chilly Willy]

The tools for the SVP are the main issue - you have an old Samsung assembler, and that's it! You'd need to assemble the code, then incbin it into the test app.

We have a what now? Where's this assembler, I've never come across one.

The original Samsung site had an SSP1605 assembler that also supported the earlier versions, along with example code files. I've found the example files, but can't remember where I saved the assembler.

The original page is archived here:
http://web.archive.org/web/199706070528 ... spcore.htm

If you go to the DSP Tools link, there's a link for the SW1605.exe archive, but it's no longer stored in the internet archive.

I KNOW I got that file years back, but no idea where it is offhand.

It would probably be better to write a new assembler using the info from the SSP1601 manual along with the docs on the SVP.

After that, the next issue is testing. An emulator supporting the SVP would work in the short run, but nothing beats testing on real hardware.

I have the best testing tool for the SVP:

Unfortunately I haven't had any time to do anything with it.

Neat! I've got an extra VR cart and some flash roms... I need to get a zif socket and replace the rom in the VR cart to do any real testing myself.