I already read SCC was not part of this cart , but IF it was , was it planned inside the altera
or as a real konami chip ?
Altera is one of those FPGA's stuff?
Firmware upgrades woule be possible?
So, implementation of SCC inside it should be possible in the future?
no scc does not fit in this cpld as I wrote earlier. You need fpga for this to work ...
Well, actually I don't really know the difference between a CPLD and FPGA!
FPGA contains lots more gates and also some memory. As SCC implementation requires some memory for the waveforms it will fit easy in an FPGA. CPLD only contains gates, mostly it consist of 'macro cells', basically a flip flop. That 1 bit memory.
The CPLD on this SD cart contains 128 macro cells = 128 bit memory / 8 is 16 bytes of memory. So you can quickly built simple schematics in a cpld such as for the SD or other nice things but more complex schematics work better in an FPGA.
I just finished assembling a second cart So now 2 are ready
ok,
i worked with only xilinx fpga like spartan and virtex , and once with altera stratixII so i did not know the MAX.
Hmm, the pcbs are not the same high quality as my v1.0 Have now 3 carts ready and 2 of them needed some slight mods as there were some random shorts on the pcb. Took some time to find out what is wrong. At least all 3 are perfectly working now!
Hehe, I have an Intel network card with small version Altera MAX on it (EPM7032, used for address decoding on PCI bus I think).
(..) 2 of them needed some slight mods as there were some random shorts on the pcb
Maybe the etching was done a bit too short? With some slight remains of copper layer between tracks? Anyway, the PCB looks very nice, Erikie! All you need now is a bunch of freshly stamped, Konami-size cartridge boxes to put 'em in
Btw. I did spot one thing missing: a marking on the PCB with a) what it is, and b) when & by who it was done. For any next batch of PCB's: leave your mark on there, I'd say. Should fit in between *somewhere* !
I think the problem lies in the space between tracks / pads / other stuff being smaller then my other PCB layout.
Who knows. I now check the PCB first without any components in my MSX to see if there are any obvious short circuits before putting components on. One had a short circuit underneath the cpld and that is not a nice place to reach when you just soldered that thing on.
However that one works also
I know I forgot my marking. It was cheaper not to have it silk screened but I could have left my name on with copper traces. Ah well more important is happy users.
Also the price for this nice PCB is EURO 35,- excl shipping and casing. First come first serve. Except Muffie as I promised him one so I will reserve no matter what happens one for him
When I run out of the first batch I can allways have more produced. No problem.
Also I get the hang of putting such a thing together in less then 30 minutes I can do it now.
What about the software? Does this cart include DOS 2 kernel? Has it an upgradeable flash ROM like Sunrise IDE and other massive storage controllers? Any tool to manage disk partitions, etc?