680x0 board with switch back to 68k

Ask anything your want about Megadrive/Genesis programming.

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Matej
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680x0 board with switch back to 68k

Post by Matej » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:45 am

Hello friends I have 3x 68010. So what about turbocard for sega? I can give you 1x for experiments plus 1x md1 eu for free.
my idea solder socket of original cpu and put there little board with new 68010 and old 68000 and there will be switch /on case/ so you will be able switch back to original one.So new homebrew games will be able to use 68010 extra features...

Who will be interested in this project?
Last edited by Matej on Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

foobat
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Post by foobat » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:54 am

That doesn't sound very appealing. The 68010 is not significantly more interesting than the 68k and it's not really faster.

Chilly Willy
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Post by Chilly Willy » Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:10 am

What would be more interesting to me would be a ColdFire / 68000 board. The latest ColdFire chips can run all the old 680x0 code with just a library for the unsupported ops, and a 200+ MHz processor could do a lot more than a barely-faster 68010. Think of it like those Atari 2600 carts with the ARM chip in them - the hardware is still all 2600, but the ARM chip allows some really awesome gaming on such a limited console. This would be similar, but built into the console, and having a much higher base to work with than the 2600. :)

Matej
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Post by Matej » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:55 am

Coldfire V4E is 333MHz, I think we can put extra RAM (ramdisk,fastram as on Amiga 500 was) maybe with battery (so save will stays in RAM) and RTC... Or should it stays just CPU board?Yep 2600ARM is amazing stuff...

Chilly Willy
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Post by Chilly Willy » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:59 pm

Matej wrote:Coldfire V4E is 333MHz, I think we can put extra RAM (ramdisk,fastram as on Amiga 500 was) maybe with battery (so save will stays in RAM) and RTC... Or should it stays just CPU board?Yep 2600ARM is amazing stuff...
Space Rocks turned out awesome, and now he's working on a new game.

Anyway, you want to keep it simple and cheap. While ram is good, don't get carried away. If you do, eventually you just have a PC with a Genesis hooked to it instead of a Genesis with a processor board. :D

Matej
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Post by Matej » Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:35 pm

OK It will be simple board with coldfire cpu+original cpu socket and external switch...
I will call it "TurboDrive" Board. TDB...

haroldoop
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Post by haroldoop » Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:46 pm

Well, if you want to use the new CPU just for Homebrews, one alternative would be to put them on a cartridge; you won't be able to overclock existing games that way, but it could become more popular that way, since it won't require modification of the actual console. The main challenge, regardless if the CPU os either on the main board or on the cartridge, would be to have enough people interested on the new hardware; it's not impossible: as Chilly Willy mentioned, there's the Harmony Cart that uses an ARM processor to allow the development of enhanced homebrew for Atari 2600, and it's actually successful.

On the other hand, of course, if you're doing this just for the hack value, then, by all means, go crazy! :lol:

Mask of Destiny
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Post by Mask of Destiny » Thu Jul 10, 2014 1:22 am

The V4e chips are all 388 "pin" BGA parts. That seems a bit difficult to work with for a hobbyist, though perhaps you do this kind of thing professionally. There is a QFP version of the v4 though it seems to be expensive compared to the BGA parts and it still has 208 pins at a rather fine pitch.

There were a couple projects to bring a V4e accelerator to the Amiga, but none of them ever reached the market. I would think such a product would make more sense there than in the Genesis. On the Atari side, they ended up making a completely new board called the FireBee with an FPGA that provides Atari compatible hardware. Might be neat to have a Genesis/Megadrive firmware for that. Unfortunately, the board is rather pricey at 600 euro.

Anyway, good luck with your project.

Matej
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Post by Matej » Thu Jul 10, 2014 4:58 am

There is also 68k core for fpga /but only 56Mhz/. Fpga is mid-cost/low-cost and you can reproduce them in future when Freescale will stops supporting 68k...

I like cartridge idea. Is there any good cart for homebrew best with USB upload? Can be small. 4m/8m or more... Best by someone from this forum.

But I also like Amiga-like turbocard... Maybe more than cart. It will be HW-mod but you will have free cart. port for use...

Chilly Willy
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Post by Chilly Willy » Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:20 am

The MegaEverdrive by KRIKzz has an FPGA on it, as well as an SD interface, and a USB port. You might want to look into that. If you want to try cart based FPGA stuff without making your own, that's your ticket.
:)

MintyTheCat
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Post by MintyTheCat » Fri Jul 11, 2014 5:51 pm

Chilly Willy wrote:The MegaEverdrive by KRIKzz has an FPGA on it, as well as an SD interface, and a USB port. You might want to look into that. If you want to try cart based FPGA stuff without making your own, that's your ticket.
:)
Or UMDK. I own both Everdrive devices (one with USB and one without) and UMDK and I can tell you that UMDK is substantially faster when uploading and writing to the FPGA.

Find out here:

viewforum.php?f=20&sid=2e5ca368b5f50746ff3befe1eb90dbf1
UMDK Fanboy

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