PACE still awaits
Posted 6th August 2008 at 04:12 PM by tcdev
I thought by now I'd have the chance to get back into the swing of PACE, but as it happens it hasn't turned out that way quite yet.
Rest assured I'm still keen to get back into it - just a few other things on my plate atm which have conspired to delay my return - not the least of which is work hassles.
I'm still keeping one eye on the recent developments in the "scene", which has seen the release of the Nanoboard 2 complete with Apple II I/O board, and MikeJ's "imminent" release of his hardware (target) platform. Both interesting developments indeed!
Once work settles down and the novelty of a new TV and PS3 wears off, I'll look at getting back into PACEDEV on a regular basis.
Top of my list is to port as many of the projects to the DE1 as possible - should be a relatively easy task in most cases.
After that, I'm not sure. I should probably update all the projects to Quartus v8 and see if I can finally track down this @#$%^ sprite bug that crept in. In the process I should re-do the VGA controller (again) to eliminate once-and-for-all the glitchy 1:1 scaling mode (e.g. TRS-80) and provide integrated support for both analogue VGA and TFT displays. Ideally I should also re-write the tilemap and sprite engines from scratch - they remain legacies of a very, very old project.
I need to visit a few projects that are incomplete as well. I'd like to add secondary storage emulation to a few of the microcomputer projects (most notably the TRS-80) - I started on the OSD for this very purpose earlier in the year. I also need to finish the NES sprite controller so a few games are at least playable, and try to convince Chris to finish off the NES sound core. Then there's the Coco 1 implementation, followed by Coco 2/3.
I should also do some work on the Minimig port and try to debug the dodgy SD card routines - if that's the problem I'm facing. Then there's getting Cabal to work with either of the two available 68000 cores... I did have a very ambitious project for those cores as well!
On the hardware side, there's also plenty to do. The PACE hardware platform for one. There's also the DE2-68k daughter board that Chris did. Not to mention the various console controller cores... and I won't mention the Segway...
Hopefully you'll see some progress here soon!
Rest assured I'm still keen to get back into it - just a few other things on my plate atm which have conspired to delay my return - not the least of which is work hassles.
I'm still keeping one eye on the recent developments in the "scene", which has seen the release of the Nanoboard 2 complete with Apple II I/O board, and MikeJ's "imminent" release of his hardware (target) platform. Both interesting developments indeed!
Once work settles down and the novelty of a new TV and PS3 wears off, I'll look at getting back into PACEDEV on a regular basis.
Top of my list is to port as many of the projects to the DE1 as possible - should be a relatively easy task in most cases.
After that, I'm not sure. I should probably update all the projects to Quartus v8 and see if I can finally track down this @#$%^ sprite bug that crept in. In the process I should re-do the VGA controller (again) to eliminate once-and-for-all the glitchy 1:1 scaling mode (e.g. TRS-80) and provide integrated support for both analogue VGA and TFT displays. Ideally I should also re-write the tilemap and sprite engines from scratch - they remain legacies of a very, very old project.
I need to visit a few projects that are incomplete as well. I'd like to add secondary storage emulation to a few of the microcomputer projects (most notably the TRS-80) - I started on the OSD for this very purpose earlier in the year. I also need to finish the NES sprite controller so a few games are at least playable, and try to convince Chris to finish off the NES sound core. Then there's the Coco 1 implementation, followed by Coco 2/3.
I should also do some work on the Minimig port and try to debug the dodgy SD card routines - if that's the problem I'm facing. Then there's getting Cabal to work with either of the two available 68000 cores... I did have a very ambitious project for those cores as well!
On the hardware side, there's also plenty to do. The PACE hardware platform for one. There's also the DE2-68k daughter board that Chris did. Not to mention the various console controller cores... and I won't mention the Segway...
Hopefully you'll see some progress here soon!
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Recent Blog Entries by tcdev
- Another year... (11th February 2010)
- Routers (19th August 2008)
- PACE still awaits (6th August 2008)
- Still getting back into the swing of Real Life... (9th July 2008)
- PACE repository online, platform/target matrix updated (16th January 2008)
